Of Powers and Pie
by shinealightonme
Summary: A super powered serial killer, a geneticist out for revenge, a dashing hero - it all spells bad news for the Pie Maker. A Pushing Daisies crossover.
1. Prologue

Title: Of Powers and Pie

Summary: A super powered serial killer, a geneticist out for revenge, a dashing hero – it all spells bad news for the Pie Maker. A Pushing Daisies crossover.

Disclaimer: Heroes and Pushing Daisies are the intellectual property of Tim Kring and Bryan Fuller, respectively. Nothing but the deepest respect is intended.

Spoiler alert: This fic takes place after season 2 of Heroes and season 1 of Pushing Daisies. Lots of spoilers for Heroes, up to and including "Powerless." Not much in the way of PD spoilers aside from the basic set-up

Author's note: it was my goal to finish this story before S3 started, and I DID. It was a close call, but still. I'm ridiculously proud of myself for that. I had a lot of fun writing this and would love to know what you think, so feel free to review.

- Prologue

It was time, Mohinder decided, to catch a killer.

The facts are these: Mohinder Suresh, Indian geneticist and turncoat spy, was thirty-four years, eight months, thirteen days, and six hours old when he gave a serial killer called Sylar the blood that would heal him and restore his powers. He tried to rationalize the incident, which he had little control over, but it felt like a betrayal; to the Company that he was supposed to serve; to the cause that his father had died for; and to his ward Molly, whom he had promised to protect.

This last issue weighed most heavily on the geneticist's mind, particularly due to the temporary absence of Molly's other pseudo-father, Matthew Parkman, who was busy trying to catch the attempted assassin of former Congressman-elect Nathan Petrelli. Mohinder knew that he had to catch Sylar, who would certainly come back for Molly sooner or later, but after everything that young Molly had suffered through in the last through months, the geneticist couldn't bring himself to ask Molly to find the killer for him. He had to find Sylar on his own.

Mohinder was at a loss regarding how to do that, however, until two days, eleven hours, and forty-nine minutes after Sylar's abrupt departure. While scanning the list of identified Specials, he noticed that his computer's history indicated that this file had been opened recently – during the time that Sylar was in his apartment unsupervised. He drew an immediate conclusion; the killer, killing time awaiting Mohinder's return and the return of his abilities, had found the file and decided to start looking for his next target.

Alarmed but also excited at having found a lead, Mohinder looked at the first likely name on the list – Blaire Blakely, a sales assistant from Coeur d'Coeurs. Before his time with the Company, the geneticist had tried to get in touch with her, and had failed. Now, he knew that it was more urgent than ever to find this woman before Sylar did.

Attempts to get in touch with Miss Blakely herself led nowhere. In the end, he had to use his Company connections to find out from the police station in Coeur d'Coeurs that her brother, Blake Blakely, had reported her missing the day before.

That was why Mohinder Suresh came to possess two plane tickets. Although he wasn't certain if it was a good idea to invite his partner to come with him, he knew he didn't have much of a choice – he couldn't handle Sylar by himself. "Elle," he said, as he stood in the doorway to her office. "We're going on a trip."

Elle Bishop, evolved human with a penchant for giving people painful electrical shocks, looked up at the geneticist with enthusiasm in her eyes. "Is it Paris?" she asked coyly. "I've always wanted to go to Paris. I mean, 'City of Lights?' How awesome would that be?" Although Elle was twenty-four years, six months, ten days, and twenty-one hours old, she had not traveled much, except on business trips, due to an unstable personality and an overly controlling father.

"Sorry, not Paris," Mohinder apologized, handing the sociopath one of the tickets. She inspected it with great curiosity.

"Coeur d'Coeurs?" she asked with a smile. "That's so sweet and cheery I think I'm going to vomit."

"Elle, I really don't have time for jokes," the geneticist insisted. "I think Sylar is there. We need to leave now, if we're going to catch him before he gets away."

Elle Bishop raised an eyebrow, quizzically. "Now _you_ must be joking," she said. "Unless you forgot how my dad grounded me for not playing nice with little bitty Claire Bennet."

"This is too important," Mohinder tried to keep his voice down. "This is about catching a dangerous criminal! Saving lives! Stopping someone from abusing his abilities – that's what the Company is all about, right?"

Mohinder Suresh was aware, dimly, that he was asking this question because he wanted badly for the answer to be "yes," but he was not entirely sure that it was. Still, he was talking to the wrong person for assurance, because all Elle did was shrug with her one good shoulder.

"I don't know," she replied. "All I know is that my dad's going to be pissed if I leave without permission again."

Her comment was supposed to deter the geneticist from pursuing the conversation any further, and it did cause him to hesitate while he considered how much her father's approval mattered to Elle. But then he remembered the last time that she had left without her father's permission and had ended up saving his life.

"Don't you see?" he asked urgently. "Your father wants to catch Sylar as much as I do," although the geneticist doubted if anyone could possibly want to catch this killer as much as he did, "And if you caught Sylar _for_ him, he wouldn't be angry at you anymore. You'd be reminding him how valuable you are to the Company."

Mohinder felt slightly guilty about manipulating Elle when he saw the way her eyes lit up at this possibility, but he suppressed the feeling. He was getting rather good at suppressing his guilt lately, and at least this time he knew what he was doing was for a good cause.


	2. Chapter 1

- Chapter 1: In which a detective is hired

The geneticist wasn't going to get his chance to save a life, at least not _this_ life, because precisely at the moment that Elle Bishop agreed to come with him to Coeur d'Coeurs, Blaire Blakely's body was found in a city a few miles away. The body was, in fact, found only a few blocks from her brother Blake's apartment, a fact that the police were quick to pick up on – along with the fact that he and his recently departed sister were quarreling over their parents' inheritance.

Mr. Blakely protested his innocence on the grounds that he had been the one to report his sister as missing when she didn't turn up to visit him as she had promised to do. His argument fell on deaf ears. Fearing for his freedom and his safety, he sought outside help. He had a deep-seated fear of lawyers, and he figured that if the real killer were caught, his innocence would be proven; for this reason, he called a private investigator.

Emerson Cod was struggling with a particularly difficult stitch in his newest hand-knitted sweater when he got the call. Though the case Blake Blakely described to Emerson over the phone was strange and gruesome, the figure Mr. Blakely promised to deliver was high enough that Emerson didn't think twice about taking it. Money talked; and to Emerson Cod, it said, "Why worry?"

The first stop for the private detective was neither the morgue nor the police station - instead, it was the Pie Hole, a restaurant specializing in pie. He walked through the front door, scowling at the little bell that jangled to announce his presence, and seated himself in an empty booth.

"Good afternoon," Olive Snook chirped at the detective as she swooped in to take his order. "You look surprisingly happy today; I think I can almost see a little smile on your face!"

"Maybe you just lookin' a little too hard and imaginin' things that ain't there," he growled at the waitress.

Olive's face fell a little, but she was used to the detective's surly disposition and she did not little it phase her for long. "So what can I get you today?" she prompted him.

"You can get Ned to drag himself out of the kitchen and come talk business," he answered. "There's a big tip in it for you if the clingy girlfriend don't tag along."

Olive thought there was little chance of meeting Emerson's second demand, but she shared the detective's desire to see the Pie Maker and the girl named Chuck split apart – albeit for a different reason. She smiled brightly, an action that was wasted on Emerson, and replied, "I'll see what I can do."

She had just turned around to leave and Emerson's voice called after her, "And bring me a slice of that rhubarb." She grit her teeth and headed for the kitchen.


	3. Chapter 2

- Chapter 2: In which the Pie Maker is stubborn

Ned the Pie Maker was, in fact, more than a simple pie maker. He was a man gifted with an extraordinary ability. As a child, he used to dream of other children like him, with strange abilities, or else he would dream that he had no abilities at all and that he was simply a normal child. However, he knew that both were just dreams; he would never be normal, and there was nobody else like him.

He was about to find out how wrong he was in a very spectacular way.

It would hardly be the first spectacle he had been part of; there had been many, scattered copiously throughout his life's story, and all of them could be traced back to the day that he first realized that his touch could bring the dead back to life.

It was an ability that brought him trouble as well as benefits, and it had brought him into an odd business relationship with the detective Emerson Cod, who had found out about this skill and had, with his own slightly inhuman skill at searching for money, found a way to profit from it. He still hadn't decided whether their arrangement was part of the trouble or the benefits of his gift. Today, as he listened to the detective describe the details of their newest case, he was more inclined to think of it as trouble.

"Wait, hold on a second here," he protested. "This girl had the top of her _head_ sliced off?"

"That's what the brother said," answered Emerson.

"And that doesn't bother you?" Ned asked weakly. "You don't think this case is a little…_gruesome?"_

"I think what this case is, is a little profitable."

The Pie Maker turned to his girlfriend for support. "Her brain is gone. The killer took her _brain._"

Charlotte Charles, also known as Chuck, frowned prettily at the detective. "I don't think this is a good idea," she started. "I mean, a murderer who mutilates the bodies victim like that probably isn't someone that we want to deal with. What if he catches up with us? I think it's wise to avoid any course of action that could end with my head being opened like a can of spinach."

"No one makin' you come along," Emerson muttered.

Chuck pointedly ignored that comment. "Why would he even take her brain? Is he going to perform some kind of twisted medical experiment?"

"Maybe he ate it," Emerson chuckled darkly. "What do you know, maybe we got another zombie runnin' around."

"I resent the implications of that statement," Chuck replied, slightly miffed.

"And so do I," Ned cut in, feeling he had to do something to defend his girlfriend's honor. "I thought we agreed you weren't going to use that term any more?"

Emerson rolled his eyes and pointed at Ned with his dessertspoon. "Look, all I care about is will your magic touch still work if the girl's got nothing in her head?"

"I…don't know," Ned answered slowly. "I've never tried before."

"Well, probably," Chuck mused aloud, getting drawn into the case despite her objections. "You bring plants back to life all the time, and they don't have brains."

"Yes, but I'm not trying to get the plants to talk to me, which is really the whole point here."

"And we've dealt with some…weird…bodies before," Chuck continued. "Ultimately, you never know until you try, which in this case I suppose means we'll have to get used to the disappointment of not knowing, because you're not going to try."

"Oh yes he is," Emerson countered. "I got my money placed on this horse, I ain't having you pullin' him out of the race before the starting gate's even open!"

"Okay, first of all, can we not use metaphors about horse racing, because it reminds me too much of that case with the dead jockeys, and please don't compare me to a horse because I find that really sort of demeaning, and second of all, there is no race. I'm not working this case."

The detective eyed his associate until he began to squirm. "Why – what's with the look. You make me nervous when you have that look in your eyes."

"Damn, boy, everything make you nervous," Emerson shot back. "Some body don't have all the part's its supposed to have, and you get all shook up and forget about your civic duty."

"My what?" Ned queried, perplexed.

"Your civic duty," Emerson repeated. "There's a dangerous killer out there, and you ain't gonna do your part to catch him and protect the general populous, just cause you a little bit scared."

"Are you trying to guilt him into doing this? You, the man with no conscience?" Chuck accused him.

Emerson shrugged. "It's worked before."

"Well, it isn't going to work this time," Ned replied stubbornly. "I'm not going to touch that body, I am not working this case, and that's final."


	4. Chapter 3

- Chapter 3: In which there is a common objective

Their conversation might have continued like this for quite some time, if they had not been interrupted by the arrival of an unusual pair.

Mohinder Suresh stepped into the Pie Hole and thought that they must surely have come to the wrong place. It seemed impossible, ludicrously incongruous, that a murder investigation so gruesome should lead them to such a brightly colored, cheerfully welcoming place as this. He half expected the patrons in the store to burst out into perfectly coordinated song and dance. Instead, a petite blonde woman in a rather revealing dress came up to them.

"Well, howdy strangers," she said. "Is this your first time at the Pie Hole?"

"Yes," Mohinder began, but didn't get to finish.

"You made a great choice, let me tell you," the woman continued. "My name's Olive, I'm a waitress here, and I can get you a slice of any of our delicious pies – the flavors our up on the menu – I'd recommend the peach cobbler, it's fantastic."

"Actually, I'm sorry, but we're not here for pie today," Mohinder explained, feeling a little guilty about quashing Olive's enthusiasm. "We need to speak to Emerson Cod, and we were told he might be here?"

The waitress nodded – with every day, she was becoming more and more accustomed to the restaurant being used for detective's work. It was only the logical progression of events that clients should start seeking him out here. "You were told right," and she pointed at a booth across the floor. "That's him, ol' Mister Grumpy in the purple shirt. Careful, though – he bites."

Elle replied brightly, "Don't worry, we'll just bite back."

Olive Snook thought that was an odd thing to say, though it might not have been the words themselves as the slightly manic way the other woman had said them; but, loyal as ever to the cause of promoting Pie Hole business, she just kept smiling and said, "Well, if you two change your mind and want to bite into a pie, you just give Olive a holler, okay?"

"Yes, thank you," Mohinder replied and led the way over to the booth Olive had indicated. He was cautious, because it looked as though the conversation that the three occupants were having was fairly intense; but as he grew closer, he heard the man who was not Emerson Cod say, " – not working this case, and that's final."

It seemed as good a time to interrupt as any, so Mohinder asked politely, "Excuse me, I hate to interrupt – but we're looking for Emerson Cod."

The three people seated in the booth hadn't noticed either of the newcomers. The brunette woman sitting next to Emerson Cod and the man who had been speaking both looked surprised, but Emerson just looked vaguely annoyed. "You found him," he growled, "and unless you be plannin' on payin' him, maybe you should just go unfind him."

"Oh, come on," the woman urged, poking him gently. "Could it hurt to just hear what they have to say?"

"You don't get no say in how I run my business," the detective frowned down on her.

"Please," Mohinder tried again, "we need to speak to you about a case."

Normally, Emerson Cod would never have dreamed of sending away potential clients. After all, potential clients meant potential profits, and it wasn't as though he couldn't work two cases at once, or get a deposit for this case now and finish it when the Blakely mess had been sorted out. There were, however, extenuating circumstances – Dead Girl, as he called Chuck (who had died and been brought back to life by the Pie Maker), wanted them to stay, and he made it a policy to not agree with Dead Girl.

"Funny, I already got a case," Emerson Cod said with a fake smile, "And I'm not interested in taking another one. So why don't you take your little Barbie-doll girlfriend and get on out of my face."

"I'm sorry, what did you call me?" Elle asked, as charming as ever but looming over Emerson Cod in a rather intimidating manner. She lifted her hand, but before she could do anything Mohinder caught it. His touch made her remember where they were and who it was they were dealing with, and she looked back at him with a smile.

"Sorry?" she said, batting her eyelashes.

"Elle, if you can't keep your temper in check, I'm going to have to tell your father," Mohinder warned her in the stern tone of voice he used when Molly didn't want to eat her vegetables.

Chuck gazed quizzically up at the strange pair. "Excuse me for butting it, but – isn't she a little old for you to be threatening to tattle-tale on her?"

The geneticist phrased his answer carefully. "Her father runs the company that we work for, and he has already gotten some _complaints_ about the way she deals with – customers."

"You runnin' off with the boss's daughter?" Emerson Cod asked, eyeing Elle and making an appreciative face. "Nice." He looked back at Mohinder. "But stupid."

"What?" Mohinder asked, thrown off track by the detective's comment. He glanced down and saw that, after grabbing Elle's hand to prevent her from electrocuting anyone with it, he had refrained from letting it go. He did so now before assuring the Pie Hole trio of the true nature of his and Elle's relationship. "No, we're just colleagues."

Elle Bishop, however, had decided that if she couldn't get any fun from inflicting physical pain on someone, she could at least make Mohinder feel awkward. So, from behind his back, she shook her head at Chuck and winked, mouthing 'He is _so_ hot.' Chuck fought a smile of her own.

"Did you say something?" Mohinder asked, turning back to face his partner.

"No, honey," she replied seriously.

The geneticist sighed. "Could we discuss business?" he asked her, plaintively.

"You know, that was just what we was doin' before you showed up," Emerson Cod interjected with faux-politeness. "And when you gone, maybe we can go back to trying to catch a killer."

"No, that's why we're here," Mohinder said.

"Come again?" Emerson asked, his voice dropping in surprise.

"I think that we're both looking for the same person, Mr. Cod. Please, do you mind if we sit down?"

"Sure, help yourself," the Pie Maker gestured at the empty seat beside him, which Elle quickly dropped herself down into. Mohinder, not wanting to squeeze into the booth, grabbed a chair from a nearby table and sat on that.

Elle suggested, "Introductions first, boring business stuff second?" Without waiting for any replies, she began, "I'm Elle, and this oh-so cute guy," she waved at her partner, who was looking slightly vexed at this point, "Is Dr. Mohinder Suresh."

"Hi, this is the really annoyed Emerson Cod," the detective said, mimicking Elle's cheery tone.

Chuck rolled her eyes and made excuses to Elle. "Don't mind him, he gets like this with everyone."

"I do not," Emerson protested.

"You always treat me like this," the formerly dead girl pointed out.

"That because you very annoying," Emerson countered.

"_Anyway_, he's a private detective. That's Ned across the table over there. He owns this restaurant, he helps Emerson with a lot of his cases, and he makes the best pies," Chuck continued, her love for Ned evident in the radiant expression on her face and the pride in her voice. "And I'm Chuck."

"And now that we all know each other's names, maybe we can make some arts and crafts and talk about our feelings," Emerson suggested. "Or maybe we can talk about this murder that we just might want to get around to solvin' sometime this century."

"Right. To business," Mohinder agreed. "The fact is, we believe that Blaire Blakely was murdered by a serial killer that we're tracking."

The Pie Maker looked skeptical, to say the least. "What company did you say you worked for, again?"

Mohinder was caught completely off-guard by this question, but fortunately Elle, the more practiced liar of the two, jumped in to save him. "I'm afraid we can't tell you the name of our company," she said smoothly. "You see, it's a matter of National Security. We have a lot of government contracts."

She smiled brightly, but for the first time the detective noticed the sharp edge to her grin and realized that she was anything but Barbiesque. In fact, she made him a bit nervous, but he asked anyway, "And what, exactly, do you do for the government?"

"Research, mostly," Elle replied. "That's what Mohinder does, because he's brilliant," and she looked at the geneticist in a way that made him wish there was a polite, discreet way of saying, 'Please stop flirting with me.' "But sometimes our projects get a little _messy_, and that's when they send me in."

A few moments earlier, Emerson Cod would have scoffed at the suggestion that this pretty young woman would be the enforcer she was suggesting. Now, he just hoped he wouldn't have to see her in action.

"What kind of research, exactly?" Chuck asked, leaning forward with interest. It did not escape Mohinder's notice that when the young woman leaned forward, the Pie Maker leaned back.

"My area of expertise is genetics, actually," Mohinder answered.

Chuck's eyes widened. "Wait – you said your name was Suresh, right? Like that book, _Activating Evolution_?"

The geneticist looked simultaneously pleased, annoyed, and embarrassed. "Yes. That was my father's book. You've read it?"

"Oh, yes. It was fascinating," Chuck gushed.

"What book is this?" Ned asked with a frown.

"You don't remember?" Chuck tilted her head. "It's about people with – abilities, people who are the next stage in human evolution." She turned to address the geneticist. "I tried to get him to read it, but Ned's so set in his ways." As she finished she shot her boyfriend a small half-smile.

"Sounds like a damn sci-fi movie," Emerson grumbled.

Mohinder cleared his throat, awkwardly. "You should be aware, Miss – "

"Call me Chuck," the brunette said.

"Chuck, my father had a lot of _strange_ theories. Toward the end of his life, he was ridiculed and renounced by most of the intellectual community."

Chuck covered her mouth with her hand. "Your father – did he pass?"

Mohinder looked down at the table. "Yes – a few months ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she said softly, and reached across the table to cover his hands with her own. "I know what it's like to lose somebody."

To his surprise, the geneticist found that he was actually consoled by this stranger's words. How long had it been since someone had offered him comfort with no strings attached? He had never really been able to mourn for his father – Chandra Suresh's death had left too much business unfinished, and Mohinder had been unable to find the right time to sort out his complicated feelings about his father.

Now, unfortunately, was not the right time, either. "Well, I'm afraid we've gotten rather off topic," he said briskly, pulling his hand away from Chuck and her offer of kindness.

"Seriously," Elle responded, relieved that she might soon get the chance to use her abilities on someone. "A little less talking, a little more finding Sylar."

"Sylar's this serial killer you was talkin' about?" Emerson asked, relieved that the touchy-feely moment was over. There were, in his opinion, far too many touchy-feely moments when the girl named Chuck was around, and he didn't want to hear any more of those discussions – or, God forbid, become the subject of one.

"How do you know that's our killer?" Ned asked, relieved that his girlfriend was no longer holding the attractive stranger's hand.

"Sylar has a distinctive MO," Mohinder answered, "and Blaire Blakely fits the profile of his victims. Frankly, this sort of crime…it's not something most people would ever even consider, let alone be able to pull off. By Sylar is different. He's very gifted, very violent, and very dangerous."

"Not to _mention_, he's a total _psycho_," Elle added in a singsong tone of voice. Mohinder winced, because he knew that she was laughing on the inside at the thought of how many people had called _her_ a psycho. That was another piece of information he intended to keep from this odd trio of investigators.

"So what are you lookin' for? How do you know for sure it was this Sylar guy?" Emerson asked.

"Well, a trip to the morgue to see the body is probably in order," Mohinder said, fortunately glancing at Elle when he said that and therefore missing the way that Ned and Chuck jumped slightly at the suggestion. "As well as a chance to see the crime scene. With Sylar, though, it's what you don't find that let's you know it was him."

"Meaning…" Ned prompted, not liking where this discussion was going in the least.

"There's always a complete lack of physical evidence," Mohinder elaborated.

"Won't that make it…really, really hard to find out who Sylar is?" Chuck pondered, a little frazzled at this point.

"Oh, that's not a problem," Elle said in a way lighthearted manner that might or might not have been intended as reassuring, but that definitely wasn't. "We already _know_ who he is."

"Then what's the problem? Why don't you just arrest him?" asked Ned, who was getting more upset about this case by the minute.

Mohinder sighed. "Because he's really, really good at hiding, and at escaping. He's been in custody a few times, but he always manages to get out again."

"Whoa, okay, that's all I needed to hear," Ned declared, standing up. "Thanks for visiting the Pie Hole, please leave now, goodbye."

"Ned, what are you doing?" Chuck asked, gazing up at him with more than a little concern.

"Chuck, this guy is insane, and these people obviously aren't qualified to keep him in custody – no offense," Ned addressed to the Company pair.

"None taken," Mohinder replied with an ironic smile, though apparently he was speaking only for himself; Elle looked furious at the comment.

"If we go after this guy, even _if_ we manage to get him, he could get out again, and then what's to stop him from coming after us? I'm not putting us in that kind of danger."

"Ned, don't you see, that's the whole point, that's why we have to find this guy," Chuck urged him.

The Pie Maker gaped down at his girlfriend. "What? You were just saying you didn't want to take this case."

"Please sit down, Ned," Chuck asked quietly. "You're going to scare off customers."

Ned sat slowly, looking as though he had been betrayed. "What are you talking about, Chuck?"

"Look, Ned, I admit it, this Sylar person scares me," she said anxiously, looking him directly in the eyes. "But the thought of him out there, killing more people everyday and getting away with it – that's worse than the fear. We can help catch him. You know that, and you know that we should."

Ned couldn't keep looking at her, or he would cave quickly. He was fairly certain at this point that he was going to cave anyway, but he fought it off as long as he could. His eyes met those of Emerson Cod, who shrugged. "What she said," was all the detective had to say to the Pie Maker's silent appeal.

Thinking it a rather slim chance, but willing to try anyway, Ned turned to the strangers. "I hate having to do this," Mohinder said, sounding sincerely sorry. "I don't want to put you and your friends in danger, but I don't see a choice. We need all the help we can get. If there's anything you can do…"

Elle snorted when she realized the Pie Maker had turned to her. "Sorry, you're barking up the wrong tree," she said playfully, overcome by the urge to ruffle Ned's hair and give him a mild shock. "I just want to catch this guy and go home, and since I'm apparently not 'qualified,' I'm gonna need to ask you to help out."

The Pie Maker sighed and buried his head in his hands. "Fine," he said, his voice muffled. "What do we do now?"


	5. Chapter 4

- Chapter 4: In which they return to the scene of the crime

They drove to the crime scene in separate cars – a relief for everyone involved. After the strange discussion they had had in the Pie Hole, they all wanted some time to think. Ned and Chuck were, for once, silent during the car ride, giving Emerson one thing to be happy about; Mohinder and Elle used their time to discuss matters that couldn't be mentioned in front of the others.

As for Emerson Cod, he used the twenty-two minutes and forty-eight seconds to make a few phone calls to people he knew – it was, unfortunately, not time well spent, because no one seemed to be able to tell him anything he wanted to know. He had tried all of his usual sources of information, and a few of his unusual ones, as well, and he kept running into a brick wall. He still had a few resources left to try when they pulled into the parking lot where Blaire Blakely's body had been found, so while the others congregated around that spot he drifted away, still intent on his conversations.

The place was deserted; the police tape around the crime scene was off-putting for the few people who might have parked there. It was a slightly run-down part of town, and the apartment complex closest to the parking lot had recently been condemned and the tenants evicted.

"If that's where she died," Mohinder mused with a frown, "How did she get here? Did they find a car?"

"No," Ned answered, calling up everything he could remember from what Emerson had told him about the case. "All they found was the body and her purse – and this mess."

By 'this mess' he meant the dumpster that had been pulled away from the wall and overturned, spreading its trash halfway across the parking lot. That had all been picked up, though the dumpster remained where it had fallen.

"I wonder if that was unrelated, or if he moved it," Chuck squatted to look more closely at the dumpster. It had clearly seen better days, though, and was banged up badly enough that she couldn't find out anything from it.

"I would be rather surprised to find out that it was unrelated," Mohinder answered, but the statement seemed to come on autopilot. He was thinking of something else, and shared it with the others. "Stealing cars isn't really Sylar's style, but even if the victim _did_ have a car and it's gone missing – either Sylar or some passerby stole it – why on earth would she park here? There's nothing for her to look at here, no reason for her to stop here. There is parking closer to her brother's place. Who would want to walk a few city blocks in a shady part of town at night, alone?"

Elle shrugged blithely. "I think that sounds like fun."

Mohinder was torn between scowling at her and laughing, so he just responded lightly, "Well, most people aren't like you, Elle."

"That's for sure," the sociopath agreed, fiddling with her sling.

"Maybe she came here to meet Sylar," Chuck suggested, and the geneticist was glad to hear a useful contribution.

"It's possible," Mohinder responded, staring at nothing in particular with what Chuck was beginning to recognize as his 'serious thinking' expression. "It wouldn't be the first time he'd made up a cover story to get closer to someone."

"You'd know," Elle jibbed.

"You know, miss, I don't want to seem rude," Ned coughed.

Elle brightly interjected "Too late!"

"But you don't really seem to be helping much. When you make, you know, that sort of comment. I think we all just need a more – positive environment."

"It's not my fault," Elle whined. "This stuff is _boring_ me. I'm here to fight Sylar, not talk about methods of transportation and why some stupid dead chick got herself killed."

"All right, then," Ned said, trying to sound victorious but in reality just very unsure of how to respond to that. "But it doesn't matter why she was here," the Pie Maker's was thinking that they didn't need to discuss theories they couldn't prove about that when it was something he could easily ask Miss Blakely about in person. "What matters is, where did _he_ go after he killed her?"

"Have the police been looking for her car?" Mohinder asked.

Emerson, who came strolling up from behind the geneticist, rejoined the conversation by providing that answer. "The victim didn't have a car."

Mohinder was understandably puzzled. "How was she supposed to get to her brother's, then?"

"Brother said that a friend of hers was gonna drive her, but the friend said never heard about that plan. Got people who can back up that she was in Coeur d'Coeurs all night on the night of the murder, too."

"There was a purse, right? Any ticket stubs, something like that?" Mohinder asked, but this time, found his answer less forthcoming.

"Now just you hang a minute there, _Doctor_," Emerson Cod said, glaring at the geneticist. "I'm not answerin' any more of your questions, I'm not workin' with you until you come clean. You ain't been straight with us, and I want to know what you holdin' back."

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Mohinder began, not very convincingly, but Emerson cut him off.

"Now for starters, you said this dead chick fit the profile of Sylar's victims, but I did some diggin', and the first thing I found out is, there ain't no 'profile' for Sylar's victims. He killed people of all different races, ages, social status – most of them didn't know each other, neither. And some people he just kill, but some o' them he chop off the top of their heads. So what makes the brain people special, hm? What is this profile you got?"

Mohinder deflated, thinking to himself _damage control, damage control._ But Bennet was the one who could spin a story, lie convincingly to cover his ass. Mohinder had dealt with truth all his life – he valued it so highly, pursued it so vigorously, that he had never fully developed the skills of deception. So he fell back on his old habit – he told the truth. "There's a list," he said softly, rubbing his eyes and feeling a twinge of pain from his nose as his hand brushed it, carelessly. "My father compiled it, and I've added to it. Sylar – is killing the people on that list."

Emerson stared at the geneticist, his eyes wide. Whatever he had been expected the other man to say, it wasn't this. "That is _sick._ You tellin' me you just gave some psycho a list of people to hunt down?"

Mohinder had been berating himself about this for months – he didn't need someone else to tell him he had messed up, and the accusation made him snap. "Yes, I did," he said, rage making his words quick and harsh. "A violent serial killer invaded my home and threatened a girl who is like a daughter to me. When he _wasn't_ waving a gun around, he stole a document off of my laptop. He was going to kill us but Elle just happened to see some suspicious security footage and came to the rescue in time to scare him off. So, yes, I gave him the list, and I'm _so_ sorry that I offended you by not managing to stop a _psychopath_ who had an eleven-year-old hostage!"

There was an intensely uncomfortable moment of silence, and Mohinder rubbed his eyes again rather than have to look at any of the people he had just yelled at.

"Look, we didn't – we're sorry – he didn't mean it like that," Ned stumbled over his words, trying to explain and apologize and act like nothing had just happened.

The geneticist simply nodded, and Elle made her own, slightly more graceful attempt at putting the incident behind them. "He's not angry, really, not at all of you," she said as kindly as she knew how. "He's just really protective of Molly. It's kind of cute."

"This don't change nothin'," Emerson Cod said gruffly. "So okay, they on this list. What's so exciting about a list that it'd be worth killin' someone over? What qualifies someone to be on your list, anyway?"

"I'm afraid that falls under the realm of things we can't talk about," Elle chirped.

"Too bad, because I'm pretty sure you just told us," Chuck said, dramatically. The other four gave her looks that were variations on the theme of "Huh? What are you talking about?" and she shook her head.

"Did no one else read the book?" she asked. "Mohinder said just now that his father made the list – his father, whose magnum opus was a treatise on evolved humans, people with extraordinary abilities. That's what the list is, isn't it," she met Mohinder's eyes confidently, but without looking like she was showing off. "It's a list of people with abilities."

There was another moment of silence; not awkward, but merely anticipatory, as though the whole world had fallen silent to hear what the geneticist and his sociopathic partner were going to say next.

"Yes," Mohinder said. "That's exactly it. You're very quick, Chuck."

"Maybe a little too quick for your own good," Elle said, and there was no doubt in anyone's mind that this was a threat. Just as Emerson Cod reached for his gun and the Pie Maker jumped to stand between the two women, Mohinder reached out and grabbed the blonde woman by the arms, sending a wave of pain up her right arm as he jostled her healing gunshot wound.

"Ow! Mohinder, let me go!" she squirmed.

"Not until you promise you're not going to do anything rash," he said reproachfully in a low voice.

"I'm not! Why would you say that?" she demanded, not bothering to keep her voice down.

"Because I heard about what you did in Ireland, Elle."

She stopped trying to free herself and settled for glaring at him.

"When are you going to learn to get your temper under control?"

"When are you going to learn to keep your mouth shut?" she countered. "They know too much, Mohinder!"

"Well for right now, we need their help, and for them to help us, they have to know what they're facing." Elle looked less than convinced. "Just – for now, okay? Trust me on this one. Let it pass until we have Sylar in custody, and then we can decide what we're going to do about the security problems. All right?"

Elle broke eye contact with him and nodded like a petulant child being deprived of dessert and sent to her room. When he was absolutely convinced that she wouldn't do anything dangerous, at least not for the present moment, he let her go and turned back to meet slightly worried and slightly angry gazes of the Pie Hole trio.

"What exactly do you mean by 'abilities,'" Emerson began cautiously.

Mohinder exhaled – not quite a sigh, but an attempt to relieve his stress. "It seems that we still have a lot to discuss."


	6. Chapter 5

- Chapter 5: In which there is some more talk of zombies

"So, let's just say for the sake of argument," Emerson Cod interrupted the geneticist's rather extraordinary explanation, "That I'm gonna accept this story about people flyin' and healin' themselves and all that." The detective was speaking skeptically from his spot atop the overturned dumpster (Ned had protested, but Emerson had grumbled that Mohinder was talking for too long for them all to be standing up, he wasn't in third grade and so didn't intend to sit on the ground, and that he wasn't going to compromise their investigation – "complete lack of physical evidence, right?" The others had followed his example and were now sitting in a lopsided circle around the chalk outline of Blaire Blakely's body, as though they were taking part in a very morbid campfire.)

"Would you like a demonstration?" Elle asked brightly.

The detective snorted. "Not from you I don't," he retorted. "You just a little too excited about getting' to show off whatever it is you do."

Elle stuck her tongue out at him, and Mohinder decided it would be best to ignore this brief tangent. "As unlikely as all this sounds, it is true," the geneticist promised.

Emerson nodded grudgingly. "So, _if_ that's the case, then what's the deal with this Sylar person?"

Mohinder cleared his throat. "Sylar gains the powers of the people he kills. I'm not entirely sure what his original power _was,_ but at this point he has telekinesis, liquification, induced radioactivity, freezing – I don't even know how many others."

"Is that why he takes their brains?" Ned asked, looking a little green.

"Yeah, what's the deal with the brains?" Chuck echoed, sounding inappropriately interested in the subject. "I mean, what does he do with them? How do they let him take someone's power?"

Mohinder shook his head. "I don't know. Frankly, I hope I don't ever learn what he does."

"So it's possible he eats them?" Emerson asked, his voice laced with a strangely wicked humor that the geneticist didn't understand.

The Pie Maker did know what the detective was angling at, though. "Enough with the zombie talk," he blurted out, startling the Company agents with the intensity in his voice.

Emerson Cod did his most convincing _who, me?_ face (which was not particularly convincing) and commented, "It was a legitimate question."

"No, it wasn't, it was definitely illegitimate, and it's also irrelevant," the Pie Maker said. Though he rushed his words, his tone left no room for argument, deterring the detective from asking if Ned was implying that his question was a bastard. "We need to find out about the victims. Now that he's got Blaire, where is he going next? And more importantly, can we stop him?"

"Elle stands the best chance of stopping Sylar," Mohinder answered, "Although that's not to say that a normal person with a gun would stand no chance. At least, if Elle fights him, he might be distracted enough for one of us to take him down."

"By 'take him down,' you mean…" Chuck trailed off.

The geneticist didn't respond immediately. He stared her in the eye for a second before slowly pulling out his gun. "Shoot to kill," he said quietly.

"Isn't that a little violent? Can you really just appoint yourself judge, jury, and executioner?" Chuck was a little troubled by the change that had come over the geneticist when he said those words. He sounded dead, with no feeling as he spoke of ending a fellow human's life, and the only emotion in his eyes as he stared at her was resolve.

Mohinder shook his head. "In most cases, Chuck, I would abhor the waste of life – but with Sylar, there can be no half measures. I regret not killing him before far more than I could possibly regret killing him now."

"I'm with you on this one, Doc," Emerson chipped in. "This dude sound like one badass. You ain't gonna catch me stoppin' to ask him if maybe he had a bad childhood or if he's sorry, not if I got a lethal shot lined up."

"Amen to that!" Elle threw her good hand in the air and jumped to her feet. "Now that we've agreed to fry the baddie, can we stop with the talking and start with the finding?"

"I _might_ be able to help with this," Mohinder stood and, with quick strides, walked to his car and retrieved his bag. Returning to the others, he sat and pulled out his laptop.

"What's that?" Emerson asked with a nod.

Mohinder frowned slightly at the screen, waiting for it to turn on, and answered without looking up. "_This_ is the list, or at least, the new list. I had to start over when my father's computer was destroyed, but if there's one good thing about Sylar, it's that his DNA led me to a breakthrough on the algorithm used to find evolved humans. I was actually able to expand the list considerably – although given…recent circumstances, I haven't had much of a chance to contact these people."

"And that would be the list that Sylar stole?" Emerson asked, eyeing the computer suspiciously, as though it were liable to run off.

The geneticist winced slightly at the reminder but nodded anyway.

"So if that's how Sylar found his last victim," Chuck began.

"Then it'll be how he finds his next victim," Ned added.

"And _we_ can find who that is in time to stop him!" Chuck concluded brightly.

Mohinder agreed, "Exactly," and brought the laptop over to them. "Now, this lists locations, but they aren't always up to date. Still, we might as well check for someone in nearby."

"Well, here's a name from North Thrush," Chuck pointed. "That's not too far. Sylar could have moved on to there from Coeur d'Coeurs."

"If this guy still livin' there, even," Emerson Cod warned them. "This ain't gonna be so simple as you making it sound."

The Pie Maker shook his head. "Maybe it will be."

The detective looked at Ned with disgust. "Man, why you always got to be contradictin' me all the time?"

"Because…" Ned gulped and pointed at the screen. "I'm on the list."

Four pairs of shocked eyes met the Pie Maker's, and he turned away. "Really?" four different voices asked, nearly in synch.

Mohinder looked excited, and suddenly he itched to study Ned's DNA, to observe him, to ask him a million questions – and he did get to ask him one thing, at least. "Have you manifested yet?"

The question caught Ned off-guard, as most of his energy was directed toward not panicking, and he looked puzzled as he asked, "Have I what?"

"Do you have an unusual ability?" the geneticist clarified.

The Pie Maker's eye twitched visibly as he answered, "No. Nothing unusual about me."

"Please, this is very important," Mohinder urged. "I need you to be honest with me."

"I don't!" Ned protested. "And I am!"

Elle snorted. "Oh, please. You're an even worse liar than Mohinder."

"She's right you know," Emerson confirmed without noticing that he was agreeing with the Crazy Barbie woman – someone he wanted to disagree with almost as much as Dead Girl. "When you lie, your eye twitches worse than a Chihuahua about to take a bath."

"Chuck?" Ned asked, hoping that a man could still count on his loving girlfriend to be supportive when strangers and friends alike were opposing him.

The girl named Chuck smiled at him apologetically. "It's kind of endearing, actually," she assured him.

Defeated, Ned hung his head. "Yes, I have an unusual ability," he confessed to his shoes.

"And?" Mohinder prompted.

"Um, well, I can kind of, sort of, bring the dead back to life." After stalling and stumbling, the Pie Maker raced through the end of his statement.

The geneticist's jaw dropped. "That's _amazing!_" he exclaimed, all thoughts of murder wiped from his mind in an instant. "Just think, if we could study this, learn how it works…Have you used your gift often? Could you show me?"

"You lookin' at his gift right now," Emerson muttered, glaring at Dead Girl.

"You didn't have to share that, Emerson," Ned snapped.

"You were dead?" Mohinder asked Chuck, alive with curiosity.

"Yes," she laughed, "and he brought me back. It was very romantic. Don't ask me what the afterlife is like, though – I don't remember anything in between being murdered and waking up in my coffin."

"Well, regardless," the geneticist smiled brightly, "it's still one of the most incredible things I've ever heard of."

"You might not think that if it was _your_ gift," Ned commented glumly. "It's not always as great as it sounds."

"Why's that?" Elle asked, genuinely confused. "I can think of a bunch of things that I'd do if I could bring back the dead."

"See, it only works for a minute," Ned started, hating to have to explain this to someone else when it had been his greatest desire in life to keep this secret.

Mohinder blinked and looked back at Chuck. "You have clearly been alive – again – for more than a minute."

Chuck took pity on her boyfriend and took over the explanation so he wouldn't have to. "There's a sort of sixty second grace period," she amended. "After that, the person or thing he touches can stay alive, but someone or something else has to die in their place."

A look of shock, and then understanding, crossed the geneticist's face. "So, the fact that you are here…"

She nodded sadly. "The funeral director."

"It's a random proximity thing," Ned added, still looking down at the ground. "I can't control what dies, although it is something with an equivalent – value, I guess you would say, not that I'm trying to say you can assign a value to a person's life, by 'value' I simply mean what sort of life it is, like for example, a bird or a squirrel might die in the place of a cat, but a person would not."

"And there's another little problem," Chuck continued, her voice regretful. "If he touches the person or thing that he brought back a _second_ time, then they die again. Forever."

"So he can't touch you?" Elle asked. "That is the most ridiculous relationship that I've ever heard of." Before she could continue, Mohinder gave her a signal to hush.

"I wonder…" Mohinder mused, "If that's something that he could learn to control."

At _that_, Ned's head shot up. "What do you mean?"

"It's only a possibility," the geneticist warned him, "but I've known other specials who have managed to refine their gifts over time. My friend Matt, for example, can read people's minds. Initially, he was overwhelmed by everyone else's thoughts, but now he can control what he hears and even project his thoughts to others. It's possible that with practice, you could learn to control your gift, only use it part of the time…I can't tell you for sure without further study, unfortunately."

"Too bad we ain't got time for any further study right now," Emerson interjected, snapping the geneticist out of his scientific reverie. "If Pie Boy here's the nearest special person, Sylar could be coming after him at any moment, and we still don't know anything about the Blakely murder."

"Well, we can work on the case _and_ give Dr. Suresh a chance to observe Ned's gift at the same time," Chuck replied cheerfully. "Who's up for a trip to the morgue?"


	7. Chapter 6

- Chapter 6: In which a dead woman tells a tale

"This is how your business works?" Mohinder asked, eyeing the Pie Maker carefully. "You bring murder victims back from the dead long enough for them to tell you how they died?"

"Yes, essentially. Do you have a problem with that?" Ned answered, not comfortable with the scrutiny he was under, or the situation in general.

Mohinder shrugged. "It's resourceful. And I suppose it's good for the victims' to get a chance at justice, and a last word. It's just a little…odd."

Elle was smiling brilliantly, amused that the coroner had recognized the detectives on sight. "I'm still getting over the fact that you guys are regulars here. That's so disturbingly delightful. Do you have a frequent visitor's pass? Come to the morgue ten times, and the eleventh visit is free?"

"I wish," Emerson Cod grumbled, keenly feeling the pain that parting with his money caused him.

"Remind me again why I'm going to touch this body," Ned said, shivering a little, but not because of the slight morgue chill.

"Because it's the only way to free an innocent man, catch a dangerous criminal, and save your life," Chuck promptly answered.

"Because it's gonna get us both lots of cash," Emerson answered, noticeably less upbeat in his response than Chuck. "And cause if you don't stop whinin' about it and start doin' it, I'm gonna grab your hand and do it for you."

"All right, fine, I get it," Ned sighed. He tried telling himself that this was just the same as any other time he had brought someone back from the dead, but he knew it was vastly different – he'd never had this much of an audience, and Mohinder's intense curiosity and Elle's fascination were unnerving. And again, though he had a high tolerance for seeing bodily mutilation, there was something so _wrong_ about this brainless corpse. The coroner's comment that the top of Blaire's head had been removed while she was still _alive_ didn't help matters at all. But he swallowed his doubts and worries, nearly choking on the emotion, set the timer on his watch and reached out with one finger to prod the body on the slab.

Blaire Blakely was twenty-seven years, two months, fourteen days, and eleven minutes old when she died, but she looked younger. In death, her skin pale and her face looking frightened, she seemed like hardly more than a child. The impression was compounded by the fact that she pushed herself up with a bounce and said cheerily, "Hi, I'm Blaire Blakely, how can I help you?"

"Uh, Miss Blakely? Do you know where you are right now?" Ned asked.

"Hm, can't say I do," Blaire mused. "Where am I?"

"The morgue," Emerson Cod answered bluntly.

"Oh, that…kinda sucks."

"Do you have any last requests, or anything you might like to say?" Chuck asked earnestly, and Mohinder and Elle understood, in part, the annoyance that she brought Emerson every time she tagged along to the morgue and used up some of his precious minute with the dead.

"Well, I would like to tell my brother that I'm sorry. I hate thinking that we spent the last few months fighting over money."

"All right, miss, we'll tell him – now, could you tell us if you had any unusual abilities?" Mohinder cut in quickly.

"You know, I always tried to keep it a secret, but I guess at this point it doesn't matter. I'm fast."

"You're…fast," Ned repeated. "Would you care to…elaborate?"

"I can run _really, really_ fast," Blaire said. "I can get from my house in Coeur d'Coeurs to my brother's apartment in, like, no time."

The investigators paused for a moment as they all considered what Sylar could do with this power in his repertoire; but they didn't pause for long, because the clock was ticking and their time with Miss Blakely was at an end.

"One last question, Miss Blakely," the Pie Maker eyed his watch carefully, "What were you doing in that parking lot?"

"I met this guy the other day who said he could tell me about my ability, and I thought, oh wow, that would be really neat, and the address he gave me for his office was really near my brother's place, so I thought I'd stop by there first. Only, when I got there, he attacked me. I ran away, but I only got that far before this dumpster came flying out of nowhere and knocked me over, and then for some reason I couldn't get up again. And then he _killed _me! Ugh, if I see that jerk again – "

Miss Blakely did not get to share her plans for her murderer, because Ned reached out and touched her shoulder, and she fell once more prone and silent. Her audience was also silent for a minute, until Elle broke the stillness. "You realize that this totally screws over our investigation," she said.

"Sylar could be anywhere, if he has that kind of speed," Chuck agreed sadly. "We don't know that he's still in town. He could have moved on somewhere else on the list. He could be in – Vancouver."

"Vancouver?" Emerson asked. "Why the hell would he be in Vancouver?"

"It was the first place that came to mind," Chuck admitted sheepishly.

The detective snorted. "Man, there ain't nothin' in Vancouver."

"That's not true," Ned protested. "Vancouver's the busiest port in Canada."

"Now why do you even know that?" the detective demanded.

"You guys are kind of missing the point," Chuck said. "I wasn't saying he _was_ in Canada, just that he _could_ be, because he could be anywhere. We can't be sure that he's still around."

"So how _do_ we find him?" an irked Emerson asked. "Sit around doin' some of that voodoo power stuff the Doc was on about?"

Mohinder neglected to mention that he knew someone who _could_ use her powers to tell them where Sylar was, since it would only annoy the detective more that they weren't going to ask her. "We could try asking around, see if anymore bodies have been found," he sighed, "Though I would prefer finding Sylar before it comes to that. I suppose we could go back to the list, try tracking people down and warning them."

"Yeah, sure, cause _that_ sounds like a big ol' bucket of fun," Elle whined.

"Elle, we're not _here_ to have fun. We're here to stop Sylar," Mohinder said patiently.

"Which _sounded_ fun, at first," Elle reminded him. "But now it's just calling people, and asking questions, and blah blah blah."

"Would some pie make you feel better?" Chuck asked. "We'll probably just head back to the Pie Hole to work on this."

"_You'll_ head back to the Pie Hole," Emerson corrected, "But I'm headin' down to the police station to see what I can dig up about any other Sylar attacks."

"Me too!" Elle said as she attached herself to the detective's arm. "Sounds more fun that eating pie and calling people to ask if they're dead yet."

"Hell no!" Emerson objected. "You stay with your keeper," he pointed at Mohinder, who was fairly certain that Elle just wanted to be exasperating and had realized that the detective would be the easiest to annoy.

Elle didn't get angry, as the geneticist had expected; instead, she pouted at the detective. "I'm starting to think that you don't like me."

Emerson sneered, "Well congratulations, cause you right about that."

"You just need to get to know me better!" Elle cheered, dragging the detective out of the morgue. "We can talk on the way to the police station, you'll see, it'll be fun…"

Mohinder, Ned, and Chuck stared after them. "I'm fairly certain I shouldn't have allowed that," Mohinder said after a minute, trying to contain his amusement. "But somehow, I just didn't feel like it."

Chuck was smiling a little too broadly to cover with her hand, though she tried valiantly. Ned was more worried. "She's not going to – kill him, is she?" he asked nervously.

"Probably not," Mohinder assured him.

"Then we should get on with _our_ part of the investigation," Chuck nodded affirmatively. "Back to the Pie Hole?"

"I suppose that makes as good a base of operations as any other," Mohinder agreed.

"All right, but we should check the list as soon as possible," Ned replied tersely. "I'm still not fully convinced that Sylar would have moved on after Blaire if he knew I was still in the same town."

"I don't think your address was listed here," Mohinder assured him. "But we'll check all the same."

By the time they had reached the car, Ned had mostly calmed down. Unfortunately, the Pie Maker only had a minute to enjoy his relaxation. In the back seat, the geneticist had booted up his laptop again and was perusing his list when he saw something that made him snap to attention. Wordlessly, he passed the computer up to the girl called Chuck for confirmation.

Chuck looked at her boyfriend in the driver's seat. "…Uh, Ned? We have a problem."

Instincts immediately on alert, the Pie Maker tried to sound calm as he asked, "What do you mean, a problem?"

Chuck gulped. "You're not the _only_ one on this list."


	8. Chapter 7

- Chapter 7: In which the customer does not eat any pie

The small bell attached to the Pie Hole door announced that, on this slow night, a customer had just entered the restaurant. Olive Snook turned away from the table she was wiping down and smiled brightly at the man who stood surveying the Pie Hole critically. "Hi, and welcome to the Pie Hole! What can I get you?"

"What's good?" he asked casually.

"Today I'm recommending the peach cobbler, but really, all our pies are delicious!" the waitress answered. "Let me get you a menu."

"Thank you, Miss…" he trailed off, taking the menu from Olive but not following her to a table.

"Just call me Olive," she answered with a wave of her hand.

The corner of his mouth curled up into a slightly predatory smile. "Olive. That's such an unusual name. Tell me, Olive, are you unusual?"

"Me?" the waitress laughed, failing to notice anything strange about the customer. "Nope, I'm just your average gal, though my friends tell me I'm pretty good at singing."

"That's a shame," he said, raising a hand. "You can't defend yourself."

The lights went out, plunging the Pie Hole into darkness and sending Olive Snook's heart into overdrive. She scrambled away from the ominous stranger, not seeing how the sign on the door flipped from "Open" to "Closed," nor how the door locked itself. All her thoughts were on getting a weapon, so she ran into the kitchen and grabbed the largest knife in the block.

The man was right behind her, though, and when she screamed his smile grew wider and more eerie. "You stay back!" she warned him, brandishing the knife in the most threatening manner she could. "Or I'll use this knife!"

"What knife?" he asked mockingly, and with a flick of his fingers the knife tore itself out of her hand and flew into the far wall, buried up to the hilt.

Olive gasped at the sight, and turned to run out the back door, but somehow her attacker had managed to get to the door before she could. She tried frantically to backpedal, but in her haste she tripped. As soon as she had picked herself up off the floor, she was slammed into the wall by some invisible force. She struggled with all her might, but could not free herself from its grip.

"Now then," the man said, as cool and composed as though they were merely chatting about the weather. "Let's see just how your ability works, shall we?" and with a wave, he made a dozen knives float up in the air and point themselves at Olive.

The waitress had a terrified moment in which to contemplate how her life had gone so far; the things that she had done wrong, or wished she had done, or would have liked to have done again, and most of all, what it would feel like to be skewered by a dozen knives. Then, the stranger's composure broke, and he looked angry. Olive flinched, but the attack did not come – her attacker's anger was not directed towards her. Instead, he was looking off to the side, at the door to the Pie Hole, and as he snarled, Olive realized that there was someone else standing outside. Except – suddenly, he was not standing outside, but in the kitchen with them.

"Let her go, Sylar," the newcomer demanded.

"Make me," the killer answered, sending the knives flying toward his opponent.

Olive gasped, horrified at the thought of her new ally being stabbed – but the knives stopped halfway through their flight and, after a moment of hanging in midair, they dropped to the ground. The waitress wanted to cheer, but before she could make a sound, her rescuer dashed forward to hit Sylar, to grab him, _something – _but he was gone long before he could be reached. The second man turned, just in time to be caught by a telekinetic blast that threw him across the room.

"See you've got a new ability, Sylar," he spat. "Too bad it's not going to help you." And with that, he promptly disappeared.

Before Olive could get too worried about her rescuer abandoning her, Sylar rolled his eyes and said "Really? You're using that again? That didn't work out so well for you last time."

In answer, a strong telekinetic blast shot directly toward Sylar, trying to force him backwards. Sylar slid a few feet, then quickly shook it off – he wasn't going to be beaten with his own trick – but the other man was persistent, and his second attempt sent the killer into the wall and pinned him there.

Olive's rescuer reappeared in front of her, and she was illogically pleased to discover that he was very attractive. "Who are you?" she asked.

"Peter," he answered, but said more urgently, "Miss, you need to get out of here, now!"

Peter reached out a hand to touch her arm, but just before he could, Sylar broke free and charged at the pair. With his enhanced speed, Sylar was easily able to knock Peter off his feet, but now that they were fighting in close range, the hero's super strength gave him the advantage. After a few blows to the head, Sylar retreated to the far side of the room, but he was not ready to give up just yet.

With a flick of his hand, the killer tore the sinks out of the wall and hurtled them across the room. Even worried as she was about the situation, Olive had to choke back a slightly hysterical laugh – _at least he's thorough, he throwing everything at us, even the kitchen sink,_ she thought. The pipes burst from the abuse and started pumping water into the room.

Peter reversed the direction of the projectiles Sylar had launched at them, and added to the mix several chairs and stools from the front room, but his opponent merely batted them away. Exasperated at not getting through, the empath shivered. He was inclined to ignore the chill he felt, writing it off as the effects of being soaked at night, or perhaps just nerves, but he saw Olive shivering, too, as she tried to stay out of the way of their fight, and that was when he noticed it really was much colder in the kitchen than it had been a minute ago. He looked down just in time to see his legs become encased in ice. Olive was suffering from a similar predicament.

"Shit," Peter gasped. Sylar had turned his attention to the waitress, who could no longer move to escape from him, and when Peter tried to hold him in place telekinetically, his grip lasted only a few seconds before Sylar shook it off. The killer resumed walking up to his prey, albeit more slowly.

Peter glanced down. He had to get out of the ice that was trapping him here, and quickly. Wincing slightly with the thought of what he was about to do, he raised his fist and smashed the ice with the strength he had gained from Niki.

It worked a little too well, shattering not only the ice but also his left leg. He fell to the ground and, ignoring the pain in his leg and the strange sensation of bone reforming itself, he searched for a weapon. He found several, scattered along the floor – the knives that Sylar had dropped before. Without hesitation, he sent them flying back toward the serial killer.

Sylar reacted at the last second, deflecting the knives and sending a flurry of kitchen implements at Peter, who ducked and disappeared.

"What is it with you and invisibility?" Sylar sneered, but his laughter was abruptly stunted.

Promptly after teleporting across the room, Peter wrapped his arm around Sylar's neck with the intention of breaking it. "Wrong again," he snapped, but he wasn't counting on Sylar's newly acquired speed. The killer whipped around and shoved outward, throwing Peter off-balance, and dashed across the room.

"Nice try, sponge boy," Sylar taunted, and when Peter tried the same trick again – teleporting in closer to Sylar – the killer was ready for him and punched him forcefully in the gut. Peter doubled over and Sylar ran across the room to finish off Olive.

At least, that was his intention, but the floor turned traitorously slippery under his feet. Peter, borrowing the power that had just been demonstrated to him, froze the water into a thin sheet of ice. Sylar tumbled over in an almost comedic manner, and was caught off guard when Peter came up behind him and got in a few solid blows.

With a sharp telekinetic blast, Sylar put an end to Peter's attack, but just as he was getting ready to make his next move, he perked up, listening to something neither of his intended victims could hear. "This isn't over, Petrelli," he growled, "I will get her ability – and yours, too." And with that last ominous promise, Sylar retreated through the back door and was gone into the night.

Peter stayed on alert, hardly daring to believe that Sylar was gone, while Olive grabbed a wooden spoon lying nearby. While she tried clumsily chipping away at the ice encasing her legs, she chattered at her savior, "I've just _got_ to say how grateful I am! That was just the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Why, you're just like my own Superman! Except without the tights, which frankly I always found a little off-putting. What were they thinking when they decided on that costume? Although maybe the tight fabric is better for flying in, but I guess you'd know better than they would, huh? What'd you say your name was?"

Peter glanced over at the waitress, amused despite his worries, and answered, "Peter Petrelli. Who are you who talks so much when she was almost killed?"

She smiled, pausing in her endeavors to meet Peter's eyes and feel her heart flutter a bit, in spite of herself. "I'm Olive Snook. I just talk a lot naturally, and you know how it is, you get startled and fall back on old habits."

He smiled back at her. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"Me? No, I'm fine, thanks to you of course. I wouldn't have given much for my chances if you hadn't shown up."

"Well, I'm here to help," Peter assured her, but a sound from outside drew both there attention outside. Adrenaline once more flooding his system, Peter stalked closer to the door, holding his breath for whatever came ahead.


	9. Chapter 8

- Chapter 8: In which identities must be confirmed and (more) introductions made

To say that Ned parked haphazardly would be to deny the true brilliance of his accomplishment. The car was closer to being perpendicular with the sidewalk than parallel to it, and one wheel had gone onto the curb, but neither Chuck nor Mohinder was going to complain, and it was, after all, Ned's restaurant they were parked in front of.

The Pie Hole was an unfamiliar creature tonight, looking more sad and tired than Ned had ever seen it. It was completely dark – the lights inside, the neon lights in the name, even the nearest streetlamps, were out. The car's headlights shone through the windows and illuminated the wreckage inside.

Strangely, what Ned fixated on was front door. "It's locked. Olive wouldn't have locked up early unless I told her to, which I most certainly did not tell her to."

"I guess she wasn't the one who locked up, then," Mohinder said grimly. "Open it."

Ned fished his key out of his pocket, worry making his hands shake so that he nearly dropped it. In the seemingly infinite interlude between shutting the car door and opening the restaurant door, the Pie Maker's mind whirled away with thoughts of the killer that could be waiting for them and what he could do to them all – or more specifically, to Chuck. He wanted to tell her to stay outside, but one look at her frightened but determined face let him know that she would not stay. With a sigh, he pushed the door open.

Mohinder entered first, gun drawn, nothing in his demeanor betraying how alien the gun felt in his hand, or how badly he wished he had spent more time at a firing range. Ned followed him, with the girl called Chuck just a few steps behind him; he hadn't bothered trying to stop Chuck from coming, but he was doing his best to make sure that she stayed back and possibly out of any danger. Both of them were wishing for a weapon and planning to grab the first likely looking object that crossed their path. They were, in fact, eyeing the same broken stool and wondering if they could use it effectively as a club. There might have been trouble had they both tried to grab it, but fortunately, all thoughts of weapons and personal safety were unnecessary.

The geneticist stopped suddenly, and Ned nearly ran into him. He peered around Mohinder and saw what had made his companion stop – two shadowy figures in the kitchen. As the three investigators watched, the shadows came out of the kitchen and turned out to be Olive, alive and well, and a strange man in a long black coat.

Ned relaxed as his pulse and his breathing slowed down to normal, and Chuck smiled and waved at her friend. Mohinder stayed taut, though, and kept his gun pointing forward as he asked, "_Peter?_"

The stranger seemed as puzzled by the geneticist as the geneticist was by him. "Mohinder? What are you doing here?"

Mohinder lowered his gun slowly. "I'm looking for Sylar," and with that, his gun snapped back up, pointing directly at the empath. "And I'm not entirely sure I haven't found him."

Olive gasped, quietly enough that it went unnoticed by the man pointing a gun at her hero, and made a face at Ned and Chuck. Ned shrugged, uncertain, and Chuck mouthed 'He's a friend.' Neither response was much comfort, and while she thought about making a break for it, she decided it was probably wisest to stay where she was and do nothing threatening.

Peter raised both hands, less because of conscious thought than reflexes, which made him wonder if he'd watched too many cop dramas as a teenager. "Mohinder, come on," he urged in what he'd hoped was a calm voice. "This is _me_, okay? Put the gun down."

The geneticist made no move. "How do I know it's you, and not Sylar in disguise?"

The empath shook his head a bit_._ "Because for one thing, I can tell you that you look ridiculous holding a gun. You're not a killer, Mohinder."

"Don't be so sure about that."

Peter continued with his calm persuasive voice. "I know you better than that. You _care_ about people too much. You're not the kind of guy who'd risk shooting an innocent waitress," he glanced at Olive, and saw a flicker of doubt cross the geneticist's face, "or a friend." He sighed, because he wasn't sure if that was the right thing to say. It wasn't as though he and Mohinder were old buddies, after all, but he had to take a chance. It would be worth it if he could get out of this without getting anyone shot. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you don't believe me. What did you say that day on the subway? Skepticism is the default scientific position? I'm going to tell you the same thing then that I did now – just suspend the skepticism for a while. Give me a chance."

"Once again, you're giving me absolutely no evidence on which to accept your claims," the scientist countered, but Peter could tell that he was starting to believe.

"You could shoot me," Peter suggested calmly, amused at the shocked reactions he got from Mohinder's companions. "If I'm Sylar, then you got what you wanted, and if I'm Peter, than you have nothing to worry about."

Mohinder was less than impressed. "Unless you're Sylar and you've taken Peter's abilities."

"I don't think it works like that," Peter shook his head. With another sigh, he replied, "Okay fine, new idea. The day I met you, I asked if you were Chandra Suresh. You told me he was your father, and when I asked you where he was, you said 'On the table.'"

Mohinder frowned, and the empath thought, in hindsight, that might not have been a tactful thing to bring up. He couldn't unsay it, though, and it seemed to have worked; Mohinder lowered the gun slightly. "That was the day I received his ashes."

"Right," Peter said, sensing victory, "And it was the day we went to go visit Isaac, because Nathan was in Las Vegas – only Isaac wasn't there, and then Hiro gave me a message on the subway. 'Save the cheerleader, save the world.' And you thought I was crazy."

"Apparently you are. You disappear from the face of the earth for four months, and just when I assumed you'd be glued to your brother's side, I find you in a small town playing Prince Charming – at a very suspicious time."

The comment upset Peter, but he tried not to let it show; tried to live in the moment of saving Olive, stopping Sylar, convincing Mohinder, _not_ worrying about his brother's 'critical but stable' condition. "I was with Nathan, and I – I wanted to stay. But I had a dream. I could help these people, so I came here."

Mohinder lowered his gun with a twisted smile. "Now that sounds like Peter Petrelli."

"Oh thank God," Olive exclaimed. "I was so worried there was going to be another fight here, I couldn't breath – but now it looks like everything's okay again!"

"Not yet," Peter said grimly.

"Not until we catch Sylar," Mohinder agreed. "What happened? Where did he go?"

"No idea," the empath answered, frustration at the murderer's escape flickering back to life in his eyes. "We were fighting, and then he – ran off. That was just a minute ago, you just missed us."

"Yeah, well," Mohinder grimaced. "He probably heard us coming and didn't want to deal with reinforcements."

"He – heard us," Ned repeated, evidently doubtful.

"I did say he had a lot of powers," the geneticist reminded him.

Chuck cleared her throat and stepped forward. "Clearly, we need to get the whole story of what happened here, but first I think we need more introductions." She nodded at Peter. "I'm Chuck, and that's Ned." She extended a hand toward him, smiling cordially.

"Peter," he answered, shaking her hand. "Peter Petrelli." He turned to shake Ned's hand, as well, but the Pie Maker simply nodded stiffly – with his strong dislike for change, the many new people who were jumping into his life, and the destruction of his kitchen, he had little energy left for good manners.

"You're rather keen on introductions," Mohinder commented, half-teasing Chuck and half-exasperated.

"It's polite," the brunette defended herself. "I mean, it looks like you and Peter knew each other already, it wouldn't be very nice to leave us out. And it makes it so much easier to talk if we don't have to keep calling everyone 'hey, you.'"

"Since we _have_ got that settled now, we need to figure out where Sylar would have gone."

"That could be a problem," Peter sighed. "When we were fighting, he moved around so fast, it was like he could – " The empath gasped and widened his eyes. "Oh my God, it was like he was teleporting. You don't think he – Hiro – "

"As far as I know, Mr. Nakamura is fine," Mohinder reassured him. "Sylar's latest victim had the power of enhanced speed, which over short distances could probably be confused with teleportation."

"Good. Well, not _good,_ but when I think about what Sylar could do if he had Hiro's power…."

"It's not a comfortable thought," Mohinder agreed. "Fortunately, he's is quite capable of defending himself."

"That's the thing, Mohinder," Peter demanded. "Didn't he _already_ kill Sylar? I mean, you'd think a sword to the chest would be enough to get rid of this guy. He doesn't have regenerative abilities, so why is he here now?"

"I wish I knew," the geneticist frowned. "We never found the body that night, and we were all a little – preoccupied. Obviously, he survived somehow."

Peter stared warily at Mohinder, and after an uncomfortable moment of silence he asked, "What aren't you telling me?"

"What?" Mohinder replied trying to sound surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Wow, Elle was right," Chuck whispered to Ned. "He is a bad liar."

"Worse than me?" Ned whispered back hopefully, but his girlfriend just gave him a sad look. His face fell.

"Mohinder, don't hold out on me. Aren't we working together here?"

"I don't know, mostly it looks like you're standing around in the dark, reminiscing about old times and fighting like a married couple," Olive interrupted. "But that could just be me."

The geneticist and the empath stared at her, having quite forgotten about her presence, and shocked to be reminded of it – and to be clued on how ridiculous the situation was.

"I guess we should do something about all this," Mohinder waved vaguely at the Pie Hole kitchen.

"Yeah, I guess we made a bit of a mess," Peter ran a hand through his hair. "Just wish we could get some lights on in here."

"Maybe we should come back and clean tomorrow, when it's bright out," Chuck suggested.

The Pie Maker looked pained at the idea. "We can't _leave_ the Pie Hole looking like this. It looks like a hurricane hit, what if the water damages the floor?"

"Let me take care of that," Peter offered, "Since it is partly my fault."

With that, a distant expression passed across his face, and he held out one hand. Before Ned could ask what he meant, the empath jerked his hand, and in a wave, the water on the floor washed to the corner and flowed down what was left of the drainpipe.

"So is that what you do?" Chuck asked, still unused to the idea of other powers than Ned's and slightly awed by the sight. "Move things around?"

Peter smiled brilliantly at her. "That's a part of it."

"Isn't he amazing?" Olive cheered, excited that in some small way this dashing hero was _hers_. "He can do all sorts of things."

"Yeah, amazing," Ned echoed hollowly. "If we're not hanging around here, maybe we should catch up with Emerson. Let him and Elle know what happened."

Curiously, the empath flinched at this statement, and Olive was surprised to see _fear_ on his face for the first time all night. "Elle? Not – Elle Bishop. Please not her."

"Oh, you know her then?" Mohinder asked innocently.

Peter shot the geneticist a murderous glare. "What is she doing here?"

"If I said it's a long story, would you let me off the hook?"

"No."

"Then maybe we should talk in the car."

Three nods, one noticeably more reluctant than the others.

"Right."

"Sounds good."

"Fine, I guess."

"Do I get to come?" Olive asked.

"We can't very well leave you alone, not if Sylar's after you," Mohinder answered

"Yeah, and you're a part of this now," Peter seconded.

"And it's not like we're going to have any more customers tonight," Ned brooded.

"Yay!" Olive exclaimed. Shrinking slightly under her companions' bemused stares, she explained haltingly, "I never get to go anywhere."


	10. Chapter 9

- Chapter 9: In which the Pie Maker has poor phone etiquette, and the sociopath just has no etiquette whatsoever

Doctors often told Emerson Cod that he had too much stress, and that it was giving him high blood pressure. While he liked to write this off as the sort of thing that doctors said when they wanted to sell you prescriptions or just torture you for the hell of it, like most things doctors said, there were times that he had to admit to feeling a bit stressed out. Times like these were often marked by a tightening in his shoulder muscles, a desire to knit, and the presence of the Pie Maker or the Dead Girl.

At this current moment, the Pie Maker and the Dead Girl were missing, but Emerson's muscles felt tight enough to snap, and he would gladly knit a noose for Crazy Blondie to hang herself with.

"Ugh, don't you ever listen to _music?_" Elle demanded, reaching out with one hand to change the car radio.

Emerson smacked her hand. "Don't you touch that, girl. Driver gets to choose the radio station."

Elle rolled her eyes but dropped her hand into her lap. "Geez, you don't need to be so uptight about everything. You could at least drive a little faster."

"I am drivin' at a perfectly acceptable speed."

"Well, _yeah._ What's the fun in that?"

The detective scowled. And then, just when he thought the woman couldn't act _more_ like a child…

"Can I change the radio?"

"I _said,_ no."

"Can I drive?"

"No."

"Can I see your gun?"

"Ah, hell no!"

"You detective types are all _so_ possessive of your weapons. Just like that cop at the station – did he overreact or what?"

"It ain't overreactin' for a police officer to try and arrest a woman who steals his gun _in the middle of the station_ and starts intimidatin' witnesses wit' it!"

"I was just playing around. I wasn't _actually_ going to shoot anyone."

"Yeah, well, you lucky that I was there and could call in a few favors, else you'd be in a holding cell."

Elle made an inarticulate sound that managed to convey her doubts that the police station's cell would be capable of holding her.

"_And_, thanks to your little play-actin', they chased us out before I could get any useful information."

"Well then, I guess _you_ better learn how to get information faster."

The detective grimaced. "Just, do me a favor, and don't _say_ anything for the next little bit."

"How long is the next little bit?" Elle pouted.

"Until you leave an' go back to where you came from."

Crazy Blondie was less than thrilled about that idea and opened her mouth to explain to Emerson all the reason _why_ she wasn't going to shut up when her protest was preemptively cut off by a cell phone ringing.

"Praise the Lord," Emerson muttered, fishing the phone out of his pocket and picking up before he'd checked caller ID – he had a pretty good idea of who it was anyway, and he didn't want to give Elle time to say anything. "Talk," he ordered the person on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah, um, hi, Emerson, it's Ned," the Pie Maker started, as though his stammering weren't enough to identify him. "Sylar was here."

"_What?"_

"Sylar was here," Ned repeated.

Emerson rolled his eyes at the unhelpful reply. "Explain."

"Well, after you and – Elle left, we were checking the list that Dr. Suresh was talking about and we saw that Olive was on it."

Emerson's eyebrows shot straight upward, nearly becoming airborne. "Olive's on the list."

"Yes."

"Olive the waitress?"

"Do you know anyone else named Olive?"

Before Emerson could reply, he could hear a muffled comment, from the other end of the line, "You tell Emerson that he better not make fun of my name! Olive's a great name!"

"Tell her I got better things to do than make fun of her precious name," Emerson said, endeavoring to sound aloof as he swallowed the biting comment he had planned on saying.

"Anyway," Ned said in his 'I am attempting to take control of the situation so you had better listen to me, please' voice, "Sylar tracked her down and came here to find her."

At that point, the detective could hear another muted voice in the background, but he was interested to note that it was not a voice he recognized. Even more interesting were the words spoken: "Don't tell them I'm here," the voice hissed in an urgent, worried tone.

Emerson Cod was not about to let such a curious comment slip by without investigating. "Who's there with you?" he demanded.

"No one," Ned answered hastily and guiltily, and the detective could practically _hear_ his eye twitching.

"Uh-huh," he replied, utterly unconvinced.

Ned attempted to sidestep the issue, but not with any grace. "No one important. Look, we'll just…explain, more, in person."

"You explainin' _now_," Emerson corrected him. "Sylar was there, now he's gone, apparently he didn't get Olive the Magnificently Named…" he trailed off. "Oh Lord, you didn't magic finger Olive back from the dead, did you? You better answer no, cause that's disturbin'. You can't go around making zombies outta people I know."

"What? No," Ned replied with genuine surprise. "Olive didn't _die_. She's fine."

"Then what happen to Sylar?"

"He just…ran off."

"'He just ran off,' " Emerson repeated in a monotone voice. "Why the hell'd he run off for?"

"He…heard us coming?" Ned answered; if his words had been any more uncertain, he would have been unable to speak.

"Boy, you ain't that scary," Emerson snorted. "Why'd he really run off, and who's there with you tryin' to pretend he ain't?"

Ned sighed. "I think it's best if we regroup, okay? Let's meet at your office."

His words fortuitously – and unintentionally – distracted the detective from pursuing any further inquiry. "Do you even know where my office is?" he asked the Pie Maker, half amused and half annoyed.

"Of course?" Ned asked, then coughed and affirmed, "Of course I know where your office is, Emerson."

The Pie Maker obviously thought he was covering the mouthpiece, for the detective overheard a whispered conversation.

"Chuck, where's Emerson's office?"

"I don't know. How should I know?"

"You always know this sort of thing. You know everything."

"That's sweet but I don't, actually. I've never even been to his office."

"Well neither have I."

"Ned, you're his _partner,_ and you've never been to his office?"

"He always comes here. There's pie here. I don't think he has pie in his office."

"We should have taken one with us," Olive cut in.

Ned picked up the phone again and spoke to Emerson. "No, I don't know where your office is."

Emerson rolled his eyes as he gave the Pie Maker directions. "What's wrong with the Pie Hole? Ya'll got more space up there."

"Yeah, it's just a little…messy, right now," Ned gulped. "Actually, it's more like…decimated."

"What do you – look, I'm right near my office now. Just swing by soon as you can." Glancing uneasily once more at the blonde in the passenger seat, he clarified, "And that better be soon."

"Right. See you soon."


	11. Chapter 10

- Chapter 10: in which the heroes fight each other

The Pie Maker wished that finding Emerson Cod's office was the difficult part of the drive; sadly, it was not. The problem was the awkward tension caused by suspicion with which the empath was regarding the geneticist. Peter held his tongue, more or less, while Ned was on the phone, but once he hung up, the empath turned to face Mohinder and demanded in his recently cultivated intimidating manner, "What's going on here, Mohinder?"

Knowing he couldn't avoid answering forever, the geneticist thought to make it sound as simple as possible. "I wanted to capture Sylar, once and for all. I knew I couldn't do it by myself, so I asked for some help."

"And you asked _Elle?_" Peter asked in disgust. "Why the hell would you do that?"

"Because she can get the job done."

"You can't be serious. Do you know her?"

"Yes."

The empath's glare could have burned holes through the geneticist. "Mohinder, she's dangerous. You can't honestly tell me you trust her!"

"She saved my life," Mohinder countered simply.

"She works for the Company," Peter said; the worse accusation he could think of.

"So do I."

Peter gaped at him in reply, and an uneasy silence prevailed as he tried to assemble something coherent to say. Finally he gasped, "What do you mean, you work for the Company?"

Mohinder tried his best to calm Peter down. "Look, I know that the Company has done a lot of bad things before. But that was in the past. Things are different now, the Company is trying to _help_ people – "

"Funny you should say that, Mohinder," Peter snarled. "Because that's the same thing they told me before they _imprisoned me_ for four months."

"I'm sure it was just a misunderstanding." The scientist knew it was a pretty weak argument, but it was the best he could do to defend his new allies.

"They _murdered_ people to get me back – your cute little friend, Elle? She _torched_ a guy trying to find me."

"Elle has problems, Peter, no one's denying that. But at the Company, people can keep an eye on her. If she were set loose in the world, on her own? There's no telling what kind of damage she would do."

"The Company has no interest in _stopping_ damage from being inflicted on the world. They just care about where and when that damage is happening. If the Company really has no interest in killing people, why didn't they destroy the Shanti virus?"

"_Don't you dare lecture me about the Shanti virus."_

The anger in Mohinder's voice was so intense that Peter blinked and leaned back. It wasn't enough to cool his own anger, but it did snap him out of his state of blind rage and allow someone else to get a word in.

"Obviously, you guys have some issues," Ned spoke up, startling the women who knew him well enough to know how little he liked drawing attention to himself. It was simply that, while he was less eager than ever to be in Elle's presence, he had decided that there was no way of avoiding jeopardy completely on this case, so the best possible thing to do would be to solve it and get all these dangerous weirdoes out of his life. It seemed, more or less, that this task would be completed more easily with Elle's help than without it. "I don't really know what you're talking about," he continued, "and I don't care. Right now, there is a psycho with – magic, or something – who wants to kill me. And my friend. You guys still want to catch him, right?"

Peter and Mohinder nodded immediately.

"And you hate him more than you hate each other right now?"

This time, the response took a moment; the two men eyed each other suspiciously, but nodded all the same.

"Then can we catch him now, and afterwards you guys can go back where you came from and – yell at each other, or whatever you want?" Ned gave each of them what he thought was an authoritative look. "Doesn't that sound like a better idea than getting mad at each other and dying?"

Mohinder looked at Peter again, somewhat sheepishly but still defensive. "I suppose he's right."

"Yeah," the empath answered, sounding distracted. "Truce – for now."

"Isn't there something else you two need to say to each other?" Chuck prompted, and when she got blank stares in return, she raised and eyebrow and admonished them, "What, your parents never taught you to apologize?"

Peter was startled enough that he nearly laughed, but one glance at Mohinder strangled any urge toward undue mirth – he still felt betrayed. "Sorry," he muttered, his insincerity matched only by the resentment in Mohinder's own apology.

"That's better," Chuck smiled.

Peace reigned in the car for perhaps 30 seconds, before Olive Snook gave in to her perfectly natural curiosity. "So what's the deal with this Company?"

Mohinder sighed and buried his face in his hands; Peter simply shook his head. "Let's…not get into this right now."

"Okay," the waitress answered glumly, and waited another ten seconds before asking, "So, they're evil, right?"

"Yes," Peter answered, less through conscious thought than by a knee-jerk reaction. Mohinder replied "Not necessarily" at the same time; however, since he didn't raise his head, his voice was muffled.

Olive had already decided to back her personal hero Peter in any and all disputes, especially ones that arose against the man who had pointed a gun in her direction. "How evil? I mean, are we talking a man who steals a loaf of bread to feed his starving family evil, or millionaire CEO exploiting workers for personal profit evil, or terrorist evil?"

"You can't say that a man who steals to save the lives of his family is _evil,_" Chuck protested.

"Well, it's morally gray at the very least," Olive amended.

Chuck was still mildly offended by the notion. "Morally gray? That's like – killing someone to save a life. Stealing something with very little value to save a life isn't a crime, it's a heroic act."

"Actually, stealing _is_ a crime," Ned corrected her.

Chuck glared at the driver, but her tone was teasing as she replied, "So is grave-robbing."

Ned coughed and shifted awkwardly in his seat. "Laws _exist_ for a reason, Chuck. This isn't revolutionary France. If the man's family really is starving to death, there are ways of getting help that don't involve breaking any laws."

"The whole thing is sort of pointless," Peter commented. "Really, one loaf isn't going to make much of a difference if the situation is that dire. It's more senseless than it is immoral."

"I don't believe it," Olive shook her head. "You all want to condemn this poor man as being a criminal and stupid, just because he's trying to do something to help his family. You're just a bunch of insensitive men."

"You all realize that this man is _fictional._ There isn't really a starving family," Mohinder pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

Chuck didn't seem to hear this. "They're insensitive? You're the one who was in such a hurry to label him as evil."

"I was just trying to make a point, and that man seems to be pretty low on the scale of evil acts."

"He doesn't even _make_ the scale," Chuck huffed.

"I think the man he stole the loaf from would argue otherwise," Ned reminded her.

She threw her hands in the air. "I don't think anyone would even notice if a loaf went missing."

"Well, I know that if a pie went missing from the Pie Hole, I would notice it," Olive cut in.

"And I know that if I were going to steal food, it would be one of Ned's pies, not just some loaf of bread," Chuck laughed.

Olive nodded, "I'm with you on that one."

Ned looked hurt. "You guys would steal from me?"

"Oh, relax Ned," Olive rolled her eyes. "It's a compliment."

"We wouldn't really steal from you," his girlfriend reassured him.

"Speak for yourself, Chuck. I'd steal one of those pies if it was the only way I could get one. They're _good._"

"Doesn't that put you further up the scale of evil than the guy who steals the bread?" Chuck mused.

"But mine's just a hypothetical," Olive protested.

"So is the guy stealing the loaf of bread," Peter reminded them, feeling his head twisted around more and more the longer they talked.

"I don't think this is the sort of discussion Victor Hugo expected to provoke," Mohinder muttered, too glad they were no longer talking about the Company to be anything more than slightly annoyed by the conversation.

"And look, here we are," Ned said cheerfully, pulling the car into a parking space. "Time to get back to hunting down a psychopathic serial killer." He paused, then glanced at Chuck through the plastic divider. "Remind me again why I'm glad about that?"


	12. Chapter 11

- Chapter 11: In which the characters act as though they've never seen a horror flick

"Am I glad to see you," Emerson Cod declared grumpily when the Pie Maker walked through the door of his office, accompanied by Mohinder, Chuck, and Olive.

"You know, I was going to say the same thing," Ned replied, "Except phrased differently. Why do people say, 'Am I glad to see you,' like it's a question? It's as though they aren't sure if they are glad or not, so they're asking the other person, which is silly, because on the one hand, the other person might not know, and on the other hand, it makes the speaker sound uncertain when really they're trying to convey a very strong feeling, so really they're just contradicting themselves, in which case, why bother?"

The detective glared at him for a minute, and continued, "You know what, I ain't glad to see you anymore. Go 'way and I'll try my luck stickin' it out here with Blondie."

"Why does everyone say that like it's a _bad_ thing?" Elle asked, while simultaneously, Chuck grinned and said, "Ah, come on Emerson, you know you missed us."

"You I didn't miss at all," Emerson glanced at Chuck first and then Olive. "You I missed even less."

"Ah, shucks Emerson, you know how to flatter a gal," Olive replied sarcastically, missing Peter. She was sure that he knew how to treat a lady properly.

"Yeah, well," Emerson sneered, his voice dripping with insincere cheer, "I do what I can." Reverting back to his usual tone, he demanded harshly, "Now, ya'll wanna tell me just how you let the creepy killa get away after all this time we spent lookin' for him?"

"We didn't exactly 'let' him get away," Ned replied. "In case you forgot, he is _literally_ faster than a speeding bullet."

"Isn't that what Blondie's here for?" Emerson scowled at Elle. "What good are you if you ain't even around to fight this guy you supposed to fight? Oughta left you on the mother ship."

Elle put on her sweetest, most innocent face, the one she usually reserved for when she had just shocked someone without authorization. "It's not my fault. No one told me there was another special around. And anyway, you really only have yourself to blame. You're the one who said we should talk to the cops."

"Yeah, and a fat lot of good that did us," Emerson grumbled. "Ain't no more dead bodies, at least not that anyone's found yet."

"Which is a _good _thing," Chuck admonished the detective, "So don't say it like it isn't."

"Yeah, the bastard's enough of a problem without havin' anymore powers."

"That's not what I meant," the dead girl protested.

Emerson shrugged. "It's what I meant. From the sound of things, he almost got that one's power," he pointed at Olive, who put her hands on her hips and glared at him, "strange as it is to think o' her havin' any power worth takin'. How the hell did that happen?"

Mohinder blinked. "How did her having powers happen, or how did Sylar's almost gaining her abilities happen?"

"Second one."

"We were unaware of Miss Snook's status as a special until after you had left – we consulted the list a second time, hoping to anticipate Sylar's next move and not realizing the next target would be someone so close. He already made his move, but Olive held him off, and when we arrived he ran for it."

"Why would he do a thing like that?" Emerson frowned. "Don't make no sense."

He shrugged. "Strategic retreat? He wasn't expecting so many of us, not just yet, and he still doesn't know what Ned can do. For all he knew, he was about to get into a fight with someone who could kill him just by blinking, so he retreated to gather information or come up with a new plan so that he'll be better prepared for next time."

"You jokin' about the killin' someone by blinkin' thing, right?" Emerson asked.

"Not…really, no. Although, it wasn't blinking, it was crying."

"Killin' someone by cryin'? What the hell kinda girly power is that? I think you just makin' this up as you go along, Doc." Shaking his head, the detective remembered something, and indignantly he pointed at the Pie Maker. "Now, there's somethin' else that don't make sense. Who was that person that was with you all when you called? Said he dint want you to talk about him?"

"You realize how – strange – that question sounds, right?" Ned stalled. "You're asking us about someone while identifying him as the person we weren't supposed to tell you about."

"Bit of a philosophical problem there," Chuck agreed. "If we tell you about him, he in a sense ceases to exist."

"Ya'll don't stop chatterin' and start answerin' you gonna piss me off, in a sense, and I'm gonna have to smack you around, in a sense."

"At least you didn't have to listen to the _Les Miserables_ discussion," Mohinder grinned in spite of himself.

"Oh, relax," Olive rolled her eyes. "It was just some guy with rotten luck. He was the last customer of the day, about to leave, and then bam! In comes that Freddy Krueger wannabe, smashing up the place and trying to kill us, and the poor guy was scared out of his mind – who wouldn't be? So when it was all over, he just wanted to have nothing to do with any of us anymore."

Emerson grunted. "Sloppy work, getting' someone else involved. Still, you got that much power and that little conscience, guess it don't really matter."

There were nods of agreement from the others, and Chuck frowned in concentration. "The question is, who gets involved next," she mused aloud.

"What?"

"Well, who is Sylar going to bring into this next? Who's his next victim? We need to find them, before we have another body and the trail runs cold."

"That's ain't gonna be a problem," Emerson shook his head. "My guess is, if the dude just attacked Olive, he's gonna stick around until he's got the two o' them."

"Oh, great," Olive shuddered deeply.

"In a way, it is," Mohinder commented. "That probably sounds strange, but it means that we know that he's still in the general area; it'll make it that much easier to find him."

Chuck gave at the waitress one of her warm, soothing smiles. "Dr. Suresh is right. And at least we _know_ he's coming and we're ready to defend ourselves."

"Yeah, sure," Olive nodded, though their words troubled her more than they comforted her. Much more reassuring was the slight pressure she felt on her left shoulder, as though someone had squeezed it gently. She wanted to turn around to look behind her but knew she wouldn't see anything anyway.

"I fail to see why this is such a great thing," Ned sighed. "He's around here somewhere, but we don't know where he is, we don't have any leads, and he knows where to find us."

"I don't see the problem," Elle countered. "He'll come hunt you down, and when he does, we'll fry him."

Emerson stared at her in disgust. "That's sick." The expression on his face changed to something more pensive, and he continued, "But it _is _practical…"

"Emerson!" Ned exclaimed. "I am not going to sit around and wait for some psycho to come find me!"

"Then what?" the detective defended. "Go find the psycho?"

"Yes." Ned crossed his arms over his chest, psyching himself up for what he was about to say. "He's looking for us; I say, we go looking for him. That way, we get to surprise him and not the other way around."

"Sure, why didn't you say so," Elle chirped. "What's there for a murderer to do for fun on a Friday night around here?"

"No, he's got a point," Mohinder reasoned. "We don't have a specific destination in mind, true, but if Sylar is continuing the search for us he'll won't be too concerned with hiding himself. We can find him if search the city methodically." He paused before asking the detective, "Do you have road maps or something around here?"

Emerson grunted and, after digging in a filing cabinet for a minute, pulled out a street directory.

"Perfect," the geneticist remarked, flipping through the pages. "We are…here…" and he proceeded to study the surrounding streets.

Olive cleared her throat in the momentary silence. "Now, far be it for me to question the experts on this sort of thing," she started, "But how does one look for a serial killer, anyway? I mean, do we go around asking people if they've seen a creepy lookin' guy?"

"Bit generic of a description, don't you think?" Elle smirked. "We'd be chasing pickpockets and perverts all night."

"We could ask if anyone has seen someone who asked them if they'd seen us," Chuck offered.

Mohinder blinked. "That sounds…needlessly complicated."

Ned grinned at his girlfriend. "But sort of symmetric."

"A simply physical description will probably suffice," the scientist stated. "Now, we have another problem that needs sorting out, which is: we are not going to fit into one car. Do we divide up, and if so, how?"

This set off a rather longer debate than Mohinder had intended. While Elle and Emerson thought that splitting up would be the smartest thing to do – they could cover more area and would be less noticeable – Olive reminded them that there was safety in numbers, and Chuck and Ned agreed with her. Eventually, though, they were worn down by the simple fact that time was an important factor – no one wanted the threat of Sylar looming over them a moment longer – and that they would work faster in a few smaller groups.

Ned did, however, suggest that they keep in touch by cell phone throughout the search, and it was agreed on that they would call each other at the first hint of Sylar, or every fifteen minutes. If someone went unheard from, the others would go check up on them.

"And we oughta have one armed and/or dangerous person per group," Emerson stated. "That's me, the Doc, and Blondie over there."

The Pie Maker was slightly miffed. "I'm not considered 'dangerous?'"

"You not armed, unless you brought a rollin' pin with you," the detective reminded him. "In a pinch you could always take down someone else, bring 'em back, and hope that Sylar's the one that takes their place, but it ain't really reliable."

"Fine, I get it," Ned sighed. "Let's just get this over with."


	13. Chapter 12

- Chapter 12: in which they seek but do not find

It was, despite the Pie Maker's most fervent hopes, going to be a rather long night. Standing outside his car, Ned stared down at Chuck and wished that they could just drive away together and leave Sylar and powers and search parties behind. Sadly, they couldn't, and now he wouldn't even have her around to help him get through the trials of the immediate future.

"Ned? Are you coming?" Mohinder asked urgently, one hand on his holstered gun and his eyes darting around for any sign of trouble.

"Just a minute," the Pie Maker called, glancing briefly at his partner before returning his gaze to Chuck. She smiled encouragingly and mouthed 'It'll be all right.' Seeing the doubt in his eyes, she placed her left hand on the inside of the car window, and after a second's hesitation, Ned placed his hand against the glass as well.

Elle said something, but with the car windows up Ned couldn't hear her; whatever it was made Chuck shake her head and start the engine. Taking the less than subtle hint, Ned stepped away from the car, back to the sidewalk, to watch as they drove away.

"Come on," Mohinder prompted his slow-moving companion. "We've wasted enough time here already."

Wordlessly, the Pie Maker nodded and held out his hand for the car keys. They had decided that Ned should drive, since he was more familiar with the area, and though neither wanted to say as much aloud, it meant Mohinder would be able to draw his gun more quickly if they were attacked on the road.

Now that the women were out of sight, Ned wanted to be away from here as quickly as possible; it troubled him to see the Pie Hole in this condition. He hadn't wanted to come back at all, but this was where Mohinder's rental car was parked and they'd had to retrieve it. Also, they had discussed the possibility that Sylar would have returned here to wait for them, but the four had searched the building and found it as empty as when they left.

Ned settled into the driver's seat of the car, trying to ignore the way his heart raced and his stomach tied itself in knots. It wasn't an easy task; on every dark corner he expected to find the killer that was hunting him, and at every red light he reflexively checked that the car doors were locked, even knowing it wouldn't do any good.

Still, he discovered that there was _something_ that could make this evening even worse than he'd imagined.

Mohinder, in an entirely too eager and curious voice, asked, "So how old were you when you discovered your abilities?"

Ned groaned and banged his head on the steering wheel.

-

"Well, if _that_ wasn't the most sappy sweet thing in the world, I don't know _what _is. I can feel new cavities forming." Elle rolled her eyes and mimed sticking her finger down her throat.

To her surprise, Chuck wasn't upset by her comment; she laughed, and the amusement in her voice was genuine as she replied, "Well, he _did_ bring me back from the dead. He's already earned the 'sweetest boyfriend in the world' award."

The socially challenged special just scoffed, "You guys are like something right out of a fairy tale, you know that?"

"I know," Chuck sighed, "Isn't it great?"

"Hello? Earth to Chuck, have you been brainwashed? That is _not_ a great thing. At all."

"Why would you say that? I mean, who wouldn't want to live happily ever after?"

"It doesn't work like that, Sleeping Beauty_._ You don't _get_ happy endings in fairy tales; you just get really twisted punishments and psychological scarring. Parents just lied about the happily ever after because kids can't handle the harsh truth."

"Well, yeah, _anything_ would sound depressing if you put it like that. But it's not about lying, it's about changing the story to get the ending that you want. You choose what you want, you're not just stuck doing something because that's the way the story's written."

"If you change it, it's not even the same story anymore. You don't get to invent your own endings."

"Sure we do. Everyday of our lives, that's what we do; we decide what kind of ending we want to have, and we make it happen."

Elle smirked at what she perceived as naivety on her partner's part. "Hate to break it to you, girl, but most people just go through their day doing the same things they do every day, without stopping to think about it once. No new endings, just old routine."

"Well, think what you like. All I know is, I make my own endings, and my fairy tales are happy fairy tales."

Elle stared at Chuck in disbelief. "Have you ever actually _heard_ any fairy tales?"

-

"Look, Emerson, you know I'd love to help, if I could, but I haven't seen your guy," the bartender said. "If I hear anything from the customers I'll let you know."

Olive and Emerson left the bar in silence, and the blonde waited until they were back in the car to complain: "I don't know why you bother to call them informants. They don't seem very well informed to me."

The detective scowled at the amateur. "If they ain't seen anything it just means this guy's keepin' a low profile. He'll turn up sooner or later. People either gotta hide, or gotta have a goal to meet. Can't do both."

"Unless he's invisible," Olive chimed in.

"Why you say something like that?" Emerson shook his head. "All this nonsense about superpowers is drivin' me crazy. There ain't no such thing as an invisible man."

"Don't be too sure of that," Peter Petrelli said, appearing suddenly in the backseat.

"Shit–" Emerson grabbed for his gun, but before he could reach it Olive called out.

"Don't worry, it's okay, it's just Peter."

"Who the hell's Peter?" Emerson demanded, eyeing the intruder suspiciously but making no more threatening gesture.

"Look, I really am sorry to appear so suddenly like this," Peter apologized, "But I had to keep it a secret that I was here. I don't want Elle to know."

"Why? She your ex-girlfriend?"

Peter sighed. "No. Listen, it's serious – there could be trouble if Elle finds out."

"So what you doin' in my car?"

"Emerson, he's the guy," Olive explained. "The one that you heard over the phone. Except he wasn't just some innocent bystander in the Pie Hole, he fought Sylar."

"Oh really?" the detective asked.

"Yup! He saved my life."

"Hmph. What'd he do that for?"

Olive chose to ignore him this time in favor of talking to Peter. "Thanks for coming along with us. I feel a lot better knowing you're around. You're a real hero."

The empath smiled at her and shrugged, "Well, I do what I can."

Emerson snorted and shook his head once more, muttering, "Unbelievable…"

-

"Can we just – not talk about this?"

Mohinder looked slightly embarrassed at the Pie Maker's plea. "You're right, we should focus on the objective."

"Thank you."

There was a momentary silence before the scientist's curiosity got the better of him once more. "I'm sorry, I just don't understand – why does it bother you so much?"

"It's a touchy subject, okay?" Ned clenched his teeth and tried to breathe deeply. "You and Peter and Elle, you all seem so convinced that these powers are such a great thing, and they're really not. Or mine isn't. So I'd just like to suffer in silence, if that's all right with you."

"That's what surprises me the most," Mohinder countered. "You're not happy with your abilities, yet you don't seem interested in learning to control them better, or getting rid of them, or making them any easier to deal with."

"I going to speak frankly, and I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I don't want to know more about them, and I don't really want to know more about your experiments or theories. I just want all of you to leave and for everything to go back to normal."

"I'm not offended, I'm just confused. You have one of the most amazing abilities I've ever seen; you can do what people have dreamed of doing for millennia; you can change the world and life as we know it, and yet you're not interested in your power. You don't try to expand what you can do, you're not afraid of it; you just act as though it's an embarrassment and an inconvenience. I've seen what immortality can do to a person, but I can only begin to imagine what it would do to a society, to humanity in general. If the dead just came back to life, what would happen to crime rates? There'd be fewer murders, fewer crimes in general. Religions would have to change their teachings on the afterlife, or would be done away with entirely. Familial structures would change; grandparents, great-grandparents, hell, older generations than that would still be around to help raise the newest generation. People everywhere would suddenly be freed from the most basic fear of all.

"I'm not saying any such dramatic change is going to happen solely because of your ability, but if you could develop it, and if someone else had a similar gift, or if we could find a way to replicate the effects, it could happen on a smaller scale, at first. You could work incredible changes into the lives of individuals – you've already enjoyed the benefits of such a change; others who lost a loved ones prematurely could get a second chance as well. At the very least, there's probably more that you could do with your gift, if you tried.

"Yet you don't find any of that interesting in the least."

The Pie Maker was not to be swayed in this matter. "You're forgetting, I don't grant life, I just – redirect it. I can't risk 'working great changes in the lives of individuals' – it'd just cause a lot more pain than joy. I'm speaking from experience here, so please just take my word on this one."

"That's just the thing, _you don't really know that,_" Mohinder claimed urgently. "You don't know enough about how your ability works. It's entirely possible that if you understood better, you could draw on something other than the life force of others around you."

"I like where my life is at now," Ned said definitively. "It's enough for me; it should be enough for you."

-

"You're sure you haven't seen him?" Chuck asked the hotel clerk for the second time. Receiving a second negative answer, she thanked him for his time and stepped outside.

"I've got nothing," she told Elle, who was leaning against the hood of a car like something out of a commercial.

"Same here. This totally sucks; let's see if anyone else has something. It's time to check in, anyway."

Chuck nodded and called Olive while Elle called Mohinder; neither of the other groups, it seemed, had had much luck so far (one of Emerson's informants might have seen Sylar, but it had been the day before and he didn't know where he's gone). Disappointed, they kept their phone calls short and climbed back into the car.

"So what do you have against fairytales, anyway?" Chuck asked the question that had been hovering in the back of her mind during their pit stop.

"Why do you like them so much?" Elle shot back. "They're all dark and twisted, even if you magically wish them all happy endings. Rapunzel's parents sell her to a witch for a salad, Hansel and Gretel's parents abandon them in the woods, Cinderella's stepmom exploits her for cheap labor while her dad watches and does nothing, and then her step sisters cut off their toes and get their eyes poked out…"

"Why do you focus on all the bad things? You just ignore the bravery, and the love, and the human decency."

"It's more realistic that way."

Chuck wasn't really sure what to say about that; it didn't sound realistic to her at all. She was beginning to realize that she and the other woman inhabited very different realities. "I think that's…sad," and the word seemed so inadequate that she hastily added, "Tragic – unfortunate – that you think that reality is like that. In my experience, you see a lot more of the human decency than the human cruelty."

"This from a woman who was murdered," Elle snorted.

"And brought back to life! See? Love prevails in the end. Granted, there's cruelty and pain, sure; there's the parents who abandon their children, who sell them off, but they're not _really_ parents. The real parents are the ones who love their children and protect them and nurture them, and you get that a lot more than you get the other kind. Don't you think?"

To that, Elle had no glib reply. It was the best she could do to deflect the question back to its asker before she noticed the uncertainty and turmoil she had wrought. "Is that what your parents are like?"

Chuck, too, was struck by a sudden bought of reticence. "I'm an orphan."

Elle let that one pass without comment for so long that Chuck thought perhaps she had spoken too quietly; finally her companion said, "There are worse things to be," and neither of them could think of a thing to say after that.

-

"Okay, so I gotta say, I am just full to the brim and bursting with curiosity about all of this," Olive gushed, twisted around in her seat to talk to Peter. "I mean, a few hours ago I thought I was just a normal girl living in a normal world and now there's powers and villains and heroes, and I want to know everything."

"Well, everything's a pretty broad subject," Peter grinned. "What specifically would you like to know first?"

"How do they work?" she asked. "Is it like those Harry Potter books, and you have to study old books and have a lot of props, or those New Age religions with the herbs and the chanting? What sorts of things can you do? Is it the same for everyone?"

The empath held up a hand to stem the flow of questions. "It's not that complicated," he answered, "Except, well, it is. You don't need props – although I know this guy that likes to carry around an ancient Japanese sword, but I think that's more because it's cool than because he needs to – and you don't really need to study, you just need to concentrate. And practice. It's different for everyone, everyone has a different gift and I think how they use it depends on who it is."

"How do I find out what I can do?" Olive asked the questions that she'd been dying to ask since she got her hurried explanation of events on the drive to Emerson's office.

"It just sort of…happens. It's a reaction, when you're too scared or excited to think about it. That's how it happened for me, at first. You should probably ask Mohinder; he's knows a lot more about this stuff than I do. I've only been doing this for a few months, and I had amnesia for one of them."

"Well what can you do? It looked like you were doing all sorts of things back at the Pie Hole."

"That's not how it is in general," Peter cautioned her. "Most of the people I've met have one thing they do, or maybe a couple different things that are all related, if you know what I mean." When his attentive audience nodded, he continued, "But my gift is a little different. I absorb what other people can do."

"So you really are Superman," Olive breathed, almost reverently. "You're like the best of the best, all rolled into one package."

"Ain't that special," Emerson muttered sarcastically.

"Oh, you hush," she scolded him gently. "What'dja pick up, then?"

Peter shrugged, not really feeling like getting into an inventory of his abilities. "Some random things. Flight, telekinesis, invisibility, healing…"

"Oooh, healing," the waitress interrupted, excited at the idea of another demonstration. "I sliced my hand the other day cutting fruit," she stated, holding out the appendage in question so Peter could examine it. "The doctor said it'll be fine, but until it heals up completely it itches, and when I bang it on something it hurts like a bitch. D'you think you could do something about it?"

"Sorry," Peter responded, feeling slightly downcast and guilty at being reminded of this failing of his. "It doesn't work that way. I can't heal other people, though I really wish I could. It's just that if I get hurt, the injury heals almost instantly."

"Whoa." Olive was too impressed by that, and amazed by the possibilities it made her think of, to be disappointed. "What if you're head got chopped off?"

"I don't know," the empath responded. "I'm not sure I can heal if something happens to my brain. But I have come back from the dead before."

"Really?!" Olive exclaimed, and her jaw dropped.

Emerson's response was less dramatic, but more interesting to the empath – "Not another one. It's startin' to feel like the second comin' around here, complete with one o' the horsemen of the Apocalypse."

"What do you mean, another one?" Peter asked, eyebrows furling together in confusion.

"Another one o' you resurrected from the dead," Emerson clarified.

"Sylar?" Olive guessed.

"Thankfully not," Peter answered absentmindedly.

"I meant, Chuck."

"Chuck?" Peter asked, puzzled anew. "The brunette woman? She can heal, too?"

"Not as far as I know," Emerson stated. "But she died and came back just the same."

"Oh my God." Olive's mouth dropped even further. "I thought she was joking – you mean she was telling the truth?" she demanded.

"How the hell should I know if she was jokin' or not when I don't know what you talkin' about?" the detective scowled.

"She told me that she died and that Ned brought her back to life. I thought that she was just telling me the most ridiculous thing she could think of because she didn't want to answer my question, but that's really what happened?"

"Yeah, that what happened. Don't know why she told you."

"You're telling me that Ned – the nervous looking guy who makes pies – can bring people back from the dead," Peter repeated, convinced he was missing something.

"Damn straight," Emerson said. "You thought I work with him cause I like his pies so much?"

"Well…yeah, that's…exactly what I thought," Olive replied. "But I guess this makes more sense." She pause and then smacked the side of her head lightly. "Oh Lord, what is going on with my life that someone being able to bring people back from the dead is the explanation that makes _more_ sense? What kind of weird world is that an answer in, period?"

"My weird world," Peter answered. "Welcome, have a pleasant stay, and try not to get killed by any homicidal lunatics."

-

"Did you see that?" Mohinder asked, eyes fixed on a point behind Ned.

The Pie Maker turned rapidly and stepped back, anticipating some attack, but none came; the street behind him was empty. "No," he answered, and pulled the keys out of his pocket so they could get in the car and leave this latest dead end.

"Hold on for a moment, I think there was someone there," the geneticist insisted. Though he didn't say it, the urgency in his voice made it clear that he hadn't just seen some random pedestrian, and the Pie Maker listened in spite of himself. Even if it was just someone who looked like Sylar, that would be their closest lead of the night.

"Where?" he asked, glancing back over his shoulder.

"I think he turned there – down that street." Mohinder pointed at a street corner a block down.

"Okay, let's check it out," Ned suggested with much more courage than he felt. He hoped that his partner would say something encouraging, but in this respect he was disappointed. In fact, his partner didn't say anything, so Ned turned to ask him if something was wrong.

The street behind him was empty.


	14. Chapter 13

- Chapter 13: In which the heroes fight the villain

"Shit!" Emerson swore loudly at the phone, the car veering slightly as his attention wavered. "Tell me this's just some really bad joke, Ned."

Olive and Peter stared at him, shocked and puzzled, but the next words he said didn't clear anything up. "No, he's here where he's supposed to be. You the one with problems." Another short pause. "You just stay there. Don't go nowhere, don't move, don't even blink. We'll be there in five." With that, he snapped his phone shut and pulled an illegal u-turn at the next intersection.

"Damn, sometimes I wish I had a siren," the detective grumbled.

"What was that all about?" Olive asked, a note of alarm in her voice.

"That was Ned. Idiot somehow lost Suresh."

"What?"

"Said he turned around and the doc just disappeared. Shouldn'ta turned around in the first place."

-

Mohinder wasn't sure how he went from standing on the street to standing on a rooftop over it. It took him a few seconds to figure out what had happened at all; there had just been a sudden blur and then a wrenching _stop_, and when his balance failed for a moment there was someone there to catch him.

In a manner of speaking.

"Sylar," he spat the name like a curse. He couldn't see Sylar yet, but he knew the cold steady grip of telekinesis and he remembered the way his skin crawled at the killer's proximity.

"Well, doctor, I must admit," Sylar said, stepping out of the shadows with his hands spread wide and a bright smile on his face, "This is quite flattering. Missed me already, did you? And here I was starting to think you didn't want me around anymore."

"Don't play these games, Sylar, you know why I'm here," Mohinder snarled. "I'm here to kill you."

"You never give up, do you?" Sylar asked with feigned impression. "I'd thought we'd moved past this after you saved my life. Do you see the contradiction here? Because I'm getting some mixed messages."

He smirked, and his prisoner glowered at him: "I had no choice."

"Everyone has a choice, Mohinder," the killer corrected. "You could have tried to stop me. You could have fought back. But you didn't even try. Doesn't it strike you as odd that you've done so much to help me? I think that you don't really _want_ to stop me."

"I will stop you. I've made mistakes before, but I will not let you get away this time. I won't lead any more people to the slaughter."

Sylar stepped close, so close that they were nearly touching, and whispered, "And yet you have. You're doing it right now."

There came from the street below the squealing sounds of a speeding car stopping to abruptly, followed by slamming doors. There were voices, talking quickly and overlapping each other, but too quiet to be hard clearly – at least by Mohinder, who opened his mouth to call out a warning to them and found it was no use. There was sudden pressure over his mouth, like an invisible hand was being pressed against it, and he couldn't say anything. It was all he could do to breath.

"Ah-ah-ah," Sylar scolded him. "We can't have you ruining the surprise. It's going to be quite a show." He stepped away to talk closer to the edge of the roof, and with a gesture of his hand, Mohinder was forced to follow. "And you've got a front-row seat."

-

"He thought he saw Sylar, and then he disappeared. It's pretty obvious what happened, isn't it?" Ned was pacing without consciously realizing he was doing it. "I mean, it's not that much of a stretch to say that Sylar got him, is it?"

"Let's not jump to assumptions," Chuck warned.

Elle just shrugged. "I'm fine with assumptions."

"Isn't it possible at all that he just sort of wandered off?" Chuck asked.

"With no backup, without waiting for the rest of us?" Ned pointed out.

Elle shrugged again. "He has got that whole personal vendetta thing going on. I just can't believe he started without me! That jerk."

"The question is, what do we do now?" the Pie Maker started pacing more quickly, as though the answer were running around and he could catch it.

His girlfriend watched him, more than a little worried. "For one thing, we don't panic," she told him soothingly.

"Who's panicking?" he asked, pacing more quickly still.

"And for another thing, we wait for the others. They'll just be a minute, and we could really use their help."

The others were not, in fact, there in a minute; they showed rather impeccable timing by driving up right at that very instant. Ned looked relieved for possibly two seconds, before Emerson threw open the driver's door, stepped out, and yelled, "Just how'd you let the killa we been lookin' for slip away, _again?_"

"I swear, I never even saw him," Ned defended. "Dr. Suresh just said, 'I think I saw someone,' I turned around, didn't see anything, and then he was gone. What was I supposed to do?"

Emerson grumbled, because he couldn't think of anything the Pie Maker could have done, so he couldn't berate him any further without the women getting on his case. "Let's just check it out and see if we can find anything."

There wasn't much else they could think of to do, so they started walking toward the corner that Sylar might or might not have been spotted earlier. They were all feeling a bit jumpy and trying to look in about fifteen directions at once, and it's just as well for them that they were.

"Car! Incoming!" Ned yelled out a warning and jumped backwards, out of the way of the vehicle that had lifted itself up and thrown itself toward them. Thanks to his warning, the others were able to jump out of the way as well, and the car slammed sideways into the building, causing structural damage and breaking the large window at the front, but not hurting to anyone in the party, with the exception of Emerson Cod's wallet.

"Shit, not my car!" Emerson stared in disbelief at the wreck, then drew his gun. "I'm gonna kill that bastard. This means war."

"Yeah, it also means that Sylar's watching us and we still don't know where he is," Ned pointed out.

"If he can see us," Olive asked, "Why isn't he doing something…like…that." Her voice trailed off as she looked up and saw what looked, for a moment, like hail, but which quickly proved to be rocks, broken shards of glass, and sticks falling from the sky.

Elle swore vehemently, grabbed the nearest person – Chuck, it so happened – and dragged them both through the broken storefront. Ned and Emerson followed, just a step behind them. Olive, who had been at the back of the party, dived for cover into the backseat of what was left of Emerson's car, and though the roof dented even further on impact, she remained quite safe but for a few scratches on her hands.

The sound the objects made on impact was tremendous, a deadly parody of a thunderstorm, but it lasted only a minute, and when the dust cleared, Olive poked her head out of the car.

She quickly pulled her head back _inside_ the car, hoping she hadn't been seen, because Sylar had, in their moment of hiding, appeared in the street wearing a smile closely akin to that of a shark. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, and she knew she couldn't just stay in the car, but she had no way to defend herself and to step outside into Sylar's clutches would be suicide.

"A reaction," she whispered to herself. "When you're scared or excited." She shut her eyes as tightly as she could, hardly daring to breathe for fear that it wouldn't work. "Come on, Olive, you can do this. Just…concentrate."

-

"All right, now we're talking," Elle whispered, a wicked grin breaking out across her face and a note of exhilaration in her voice. She had jumped to her feet and sprinted back outside while the others were still in their 'duck-and-cover' positions.

Sylar was ready for her, giving her no chance for a surprise attack, but that made it all the more interesting. She shot of a few bolts on lightning his way, more to see what he would do than with the expectation that they would strike him down, and he did not disappoint her. At the slightest twitch of his fingers, the mailbox on the corner was uprooted and dragged between the two of them. It exploded on contact with the lightning, sending the burnt remains of letters flying, and Sylar twitched his fingers again to send what remained of the box itself as a projectile weapon against his blonde adversary. She ducked and rolled, gasping at the pain in her arm. Even with a bad arm, though, the attack had been easy to avoid, and she got the feeling that it was _his_ test to see what _she_ would do; and now they wore identical predatory expressions.

She was back on her feet in a flash, but still not fast enough to avoid a telekinetic blow from Sylar that sent her back into the already battered wall. As the wind was knocked out of her, she thought she heard the building creaking above her, which was an alarming enough thought that she scrambled away immediately; it did, however, give her an idea.

She let loose another bolt of energy. Sylar sidestepped easily, but she hadn't really been aiming for him. Her lightning struck the truck behind him, which exploded spectacularly. In the roar of the explosion, the killer's attention turned for a second away from his opponents, Emerson Cod fired three rounds.

The first missed by a few inches, but the second and third grazed his left side. Baring his teeth at the pain and the rage, he swung he good arm forward and _pushed_ outward with his mind. The blow hit Elle much harder than the last one, and it didn't let up. She was pushed through the air, back through the broken window front, and through an open doorway in the empty store, which swung itself shut after her.

The pesky blonde out of the way, Sylar turned his attention back to the one who had shot him. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," he taunted, for Emerson had ducked back under the ruined window after firing. Of course, the call was no request, and when Emerson didn't come out from hiding, Sylar snarled, "Guess I'll just have to come after you."

He covered the distance from the street to the inside of the store more quickly than any of the room's occupants could blink, and he scanned them all quickly, discarded Ned and Chuck as not threatening enough to bother with yet, and faced Emerson.

The detective, to his credit, didn't flinch. He took a second to line up a good shot, then fired four more bullets. Unfortunately, he didn't have Elle to create a distraction, so Sylar simply stopped the bullets in midair and let them fall uselessly to the ground. Emerson thought that had been a problem, but a moment later, he knew he had a real problem. The gun in his hand pulled away from him; but he held tight. As a result, when Sylar tugged again, he found that he hadn't summoned the gun, but the detective himself.

Emerson was thrown when he found himself being dragged across the room by an invisible force, and worried for a moment that he had made an error; but an idea whispered in the back of his mind, so he held on tight. When he was just a couple of feet from Sylar, he let go of the gun and slammed a fist into the killer's stomach, using the momentum he'd built up to add as much force as possible.

It succeeded in knocking the wind out of Sylar and infuriating him, but little more than that, and after a moment he had regain his composure and held one hand out. As he did, Emerson was lifted up from the ground by an invisible hand around his throat. _Oh Lord, I'm about to die like an extra in Star Wars,_ Emerson thought with disgust.

The detective wasn't in an ideal position to observe what was going on around him, but had he been less focused on his inability to breathe and the pressure around his neck, he would have seen Ned pick up his discarded gun, point it at Sylar, and with a surprisingly level hand and voice, demand, "Put him down. Now."

"Or what? The bullets will never even get close," Sylar laughed. "You can't hurt me with that."

Suddenly, Peter Petrelli materialized in front of Sylar and punched him in the jaw with enough force to send him stumbling into the back wall. He hit the ground and stayed there, but the empath wasn't entirely convinced. He walked forward to check on Sylar's status, but before he could get more than two steps –

_BAM!_ The nearest door flew off its hinges with a deafening bang and burst into flames. Elle Bishop strode through the empty and scorched doorway, lightning crackling in both hands and coloring her face an icy blue. "You're gonna pay for that, you mother – " She stopped, realizing that she was not speaking to the man who had briefly knocked her unconscious and locked her in a closet. _"Peter?"_ she substituted incredulously. "This is weird," was the next thing that came to mind.

"Don't remind me," he said shortly, pissed at having being revealed to his former jailor and at being interrupted. His eyes flickered away from the woman, whose emotions were battling with each other openly on her face, to Sylar's body. Or at least, where it had been.

"Peter, look out!" Ned yelled, keeping one eye on the battle and the other on Chuck, who was checking that Emerson was in one piece and relatively unharmed. The Pie Maker fired a few shots, but they were off by a mile, and before he could fire another round, Sylar was across the room. What Ned had mistaken for an attack was merely a tactic to buy time and survey the situation, and in that, Sylar had been successful. With a smirk, he raised both hands, palms up, and the sprinklers in the room turned on.

"_Fuck_," Elle exclaimed, jumping back into her closet to avoid the shower; she'd learned a few things from Noah Bennet in the recent past, and this was not a mistake she was going to repeat again. Still, it hardly seemed to matter that she was bone-dry; peering out at the others, she saw that the sprinklers were on full-blast. Everyone in that room was soaked through and through, and the floor was turning to a pond. If she threw a lightning bolt at Sylar now, the electricity would travel through the water and affect every other person in the room.

Without striking another blow to her personally, he had disabled her.

Now he was _really_ going to get it.

-

Peter didn't immediately understand the significance of the sprinklers – why they made Sylar smirk so victoriously, why Elle jumped for cover as quickly as one of her lightning bolts – from his point of view, Sylar had needlessly left an opening, and he planned on taking advantage of that. Recalling how the killer had been able to break out of his telekinetic hold once before, he thought to try a different approach.

_STOP_, he commanded as loudly as he could telepathically.

Sylar's grin slipped for the briefest of moments, but was quickly back in place. "Trying out a new trick? Take advice from an expert, Peter, don't waste your time. Your lack of control is failing you once again."

He tried again to issue commands to Sylar with even less success and grew frustrated. It seemed like he really had just wasted time, and now they were in a dangerous stand-off, each waiting for the other to make a move so he could open fire, but Sylar didn't have four other people to protect. Just as he cursed his telepathy for being completely useless, though, he discovered that it wasn't.

_Dammit Peter, I know you can read my mind, do it already. _He didn't particularly welcome Elle's voice in his head, but it sounded important so he focused in on it despite his distaste. _Can you hear me? I hope to God you can. Don't give it away, don't make it obvious, but you need to step back out of the way when I say go, and keep an eye on the locals. Shit, I hope this works. GO!_

Peter flickered across the room, and just as he disappeared from the place he was standing he realized what the problem was with the sprinklers. Hoping that Elle wasn't going to do anything stupid and not having any reason to trust her judgment or her intent, he reappeared in the corner with Ned, Chuck, and Emerson.

Sylar apparently thought that Elle was going to strike him down, as well, because his direction wasn't focused where it should be; it didn't help that his eyes flickered of their own accord across the room to follow Peter's teleportation, and so is attention was further divided and misdirected. Instead of the lightning hitting him, which he was prepared to dodge, it struck the ceiling over his head.

-

Elle was not known for being an overly cautious woman, and she had overestimated the structural integrity of the building they were in – it had, after all, had to sustain being rammed by a car, a rain of malicious debris, the shockwaves from the exploding truck, and being slammed by various telekinetic attacks. Her error prompted her to use too strong a bolt, and rather than just bringing down some rubble on Sylar's head, as was her intention, she caused half the ceiling to cave in and bury her and her target both; the rest teetered ominously, as though considering following its example.

Acting without thinking, Peter grabbed Ned with one hand and Emerson with the other. "Chuck, hold on," he commanded, and the second he felt her hand on his shoulder, he shut his eyes and _concentrated_, thinking _sideways_ and _now_ at the same time. He felt them teleport but for a moment he kept his eyes shut, half-convinced that when he'd open them he would find that he'd taken them into the future, or the past, or halfway around the world.

He did open his eyes, though, and sighed in relief when he saw that they were in the same time, the only difference being they were outside the crumbling building rather than inside it. He let go of the others hastily and stared at the building, unsure of his next move.

"Is it over?" Chuck asked hesitantly from behind him.

Ned sounded exhausted. "I hope so, but I'm really starting to doubt that a building collapsing on top of his head is enough to stop this guy."

Peter was inclined to agree, and in any case, a little caution was never a bad thing. He walked back towards the store – completely unrecognizable from the structure it had been earlier in the evening. He prayed quickly that it had been as empty as it had seemed, because even as he approached he could hear more of the first story ceiling caving in, and where Elle's bolt had hit there was a whole in the roof, as well.

His footsteps crunched, sounding unnaturally loud, but he thought he might just have been picking up on some of Sylar's super-hearing. It seemed like a useful gift, in moderation, and at the moment he could use it to try and figure out where the bodies were buried and what kind of condition they were in.

_There._ A strong heartbeat from underneath the largest and closest pile of rubble, which meant one thing.

"Stay back," Peter yelled to the others. He didn't get to finish his warning, but what he was about to say became easily apparent a moment later. Sylar blasted a path out of the rubble, moving some objects out of his way and melting others, and it was only a couple of seconds before he was standing on a small mountain of the remains. It was endlessly vexing to Peter that, other than dirt and dust smeared across his skin and clothing, Sylar seemed in no worse condition than before.

"If you wanted to up the stakes, you just had to say so," the killer taunted, and with a wave tore a whole in one of the walls. A great chunk of building material floated sinisterly in the air for a second, while in the background more of the store fell in on itself; then, with prompting from Sylar, it flew toward Peter and his allies to crush them.

That was the idea at least.

"Do you see that?" Ned asked, jaw dropping in amazement. He'd seen a lot of crazy and impossible things this day, but for some reason this was the most shocking yet. Possibly because it was a piece of good fortune when he had given up on any of these powers actually being beneficial.

"Good timing, Peter," Chuck asked, staring at the transparent golden barrier that had sprung up in a circle around them, just in time to stop them from being squashed.

"That's not me," the empath answered, eyebrows raised – he was as surprised as the rest of them.

Ned started to ask, "Then who…" but the answer occurred to them all at the same time, and they glanced around frantically.

"Where – "

"When did you see her – "

"_How_ – "

And so, amid much confusion and wonder, Olive Snook crawled back out of the wreck that was formerly Emerson's car, brushed herself off briskly, and said in as chipper a voice as she could manage, "Well that's not as hard as I thought'd be, really. I mean, once I'd got it figured out."

"Olive!" Chuck cried, running up to give her friend a hug. "You did this? This is amazing!"

"Ah well, you know," Olive laughed nervously, "What's a few magical live-saving force fields between friends?" In all honesty, Olive was terrified, both by what she had witnessed and what she had done, but she thought if she acknowledged her fear that she would simply collapse, and this was not a good time or place for that.

"This really is amazing," Sylar called out from the other side of the barrier, startling the women who had temporarily forgotten why it existed in the first place. "I'm looking forward to being able to do it myself."

Though he bragged, his next attack was futile; no matter what he sent at the barrier, be it brick, ice, radiation, or (in what Emerson angrily declared to be insult added to injury) the remains of the detective's car, nothing could pass through it. The only option was to circumvent it, which Peter and Sylar realized at the same time.

"Olive, you need to cover us from above, too," Peter urged her. "He'll just get through that way."

The waitress was already starting to feel the effects of holding the shield up for this long; she couldn't imagine the strain of increasing it, as well. "How?" she whispered, knowing that she had to at least try.

"Picture it in your mind," Peter instructed. "Picture it going all the way up and connecting at the top."

She tried, but she couldn't clear her mind enough to picture it in any form but the one it had now. Sylar's latest attack came raining down from above, and Peter did what he could to divert most of it away before it became a problem. "Come on, Olive, you can do this," he encouraged her. "Don't look at how it is now, think about how you want it to be. Picture it in you head, like a dome."

She nodded, but the image that sprang into her mind was not one of a dome but rather that of Glinda the Good-Witch surrounded in a bubble. Eh – bubble, dome, close enough. She concentrated and, not realizing she was doing it, hugged her arms around herself tightly.

"That's it, you've got it," her coach informed her, and when she opened her eyes she saw that they were, indeed, standing inside glimmering golden globe.

"You can't keep this up for long," Sylar mocked them. "Look at her. She's shaking. She can't control the ability; she doesn't _deserve_ it. She'll fold any minute now."

"The real question is, can she hold on longer than you can?" Peter asked. "I know that you can hear them too, Sylar. Sirens, coming right toward us. They'll be here in a minute, and then it's game over for you. Tell me, just how many counts of murder _are _you wanted for, anyway?"

"They can't hold me," the fugitive declared.

"They could, with help," Chuck replied. "Think about it. Olive could set a barrier up around you, and you'd never be able to get out."

"That's ridiculous. Her, hold me captive?"

"Maybe I'll give it a try." The empath's tone gave no indication of how tired he felt and how little confidence he had in being able to wield a new ability accurately for any length of time.

Emerson, still feeling vindictive about his car, said, "Or, hell, maybe you just get killed resistin' arrest. Wouldn't that be a shame."

"Come on, we both know that you're going to take down that barrier before the cops get here. You wouldn't want anyone to find out about your abilities." Sylar raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you tell them how well that worked out for your brother, Petrelli? Do you want to end up like him?"

Peter's blood boiled at the comment, but he saw something in the background that made him bite down on his temper. He was about to need as much concentration and strength as he could muster. Still, he couldn't resist the chance to say, "Not us, Sylar. You're the one who's about to end up like Nathan."

The killer took a fraction of a second to process the threat. By the time he realized what it meant, it was too late; the shots had already been fired. He tried to stop the bullets, or send them off in another direction, or at the very least dodge, but Peter clamped down on him with the strongest telekinetic attack yet, blocking his attempts to move and use his power; all Sylar could do was stand there as the bullets flew at him, tore through his flesh, and imbedded themselves in his left shoulder.

He cried out in anger and shattered Peter's hold over him. When the next shots came, he was ready for them and stopped them dead in the air, looking back at the person who had fired them.

Mohinder Suresh stood in front of the collapsed building. His clothes were covered in dirt and blood and he was breathing hard, but his face was set in an expression of grim determination and there was murder in his eyes.

He fired several more times, even when it was apparent that he wasn't going to get through, and when he stopped it was only because the sirens Peter had mentioned were now audible to everyone else. He kept his gun aimed at Sylar.

Peter was trying to figure out if he could beat Sylar. He guessed that there was a pretty good chance that if he teleported out, he and Mohinder could handle it, since Sylar was weakened by his injuries. The real question in his mind was if they could do it in time, or if the fight would still be going on when the cops arrived. Sylar didn't seem to have the same qualms about using abilities in front of others.

But what option did he have?

Ultimately, the choice wasn't his. With his right arm pressed tightly against his bleeding left shoulder and the sound of sirens and gunshots ringing in his ears, Sylar turned and ran off into the night.


	15. Chapter 14

- Chapter 14: In which the Pie Maker learns a new trick

Olive Snook found her concentration and her strength unraveling. She was shaking badly from holding the barrier up this long, and with the immediate threat gone from sight, she couldn't sustain it any longer. The dome around them flickered and disappeared, and she stumbled backwards into Ned.

Peter breathed deeply in and out, ignoring the worry and the sirens and the creeping fatigue. "Jesus, Mohinder," he said. "Has anyone ever told you how scary you are when you're doing your whole Inigo Montoya thing?" The geneticist was still staring after Sylar and didn't acknowledge that Peter was addressing him. Slightly worried, the empath walked over to him. "Mohinder, are you okay?"

This time, he turned when he heard his name, and taking a second to recall what Peter had said to him when he was only half-listening, he frowned. "I'm not sure," he replied and tried to take a step toward the others. As this required that he grab onto the wall and not put any weight on his right leg, the answer was apparently 'no.' He grimaced as a wave of pain shot through him. "I think it's broken."

Chuck and Ned were having a worried conversation about the sirens and how they were going to be able to explain what had transpired; Olive listened, because she didn't have enough energy to join in. Emerson Cod had no intention of listening to the lovebirds, so he barged in on Peter and Mohinder's conversation. "Where've you been the whole time?" he demanded.

Mohinder looked over his shoulder at the collapsed building, then back at the detective and answered briefly, "The roof."

The other men winced on his behalf, and he continued: "Believe me, it wasn't by choice. Sylar snatched me away and kept me up there – so I wouldn't be in the way, I suppose. Then it all collapsed and he must have lost his concentration, because I was able to move again." He paused to breathe and wondered if he was in worse shape than he'd thought, because it was a remarkably difficult thing to do. "What happened?"

"Elle," Peter said succinctly; the cops were going to be upon them at any minute and there wasn't much time to chat.

"Speakin' o' which, where is Sparky?" Emerson asked, doing a quick count – his meal ticket, the dead girl, the surprisingly useful girl, the formerly invisible man, the scientist that he vaguely blamed for having started all this in the first place, and him; that made six where there should have been seven.

They all turned around reluctantly, and though he really didn't want to, Mohinder asked, "She wasn't still…" but couldn't quite finish that sentence.

"I think she was," Peter answered, disturbed because, while he didn't like the woman, he hadn't exactly wanted to drop a two-story building on her, either.

"Damn," Mohinder swore. "We've got to get her."

"Stop," Peter said, and when the wounded man tried walking away, he walked around in front of him and stood in his way.

Mohinder wasn't happy about that. "We can't just leave her there!"

"I never said we should," Peter was mildly hurt by the suggestion, but knew that, from where the geneticist was standing at least, he'd earned it. "But you guys have to get out of here, now. I'll get here and meet up with you at the Pie Hole."

The geneticist looked at him suspiciously, as though he didn't really believe that Peter would keep his word, but he didn't have much of a choice. He couldn't dig her out himself, not in less than a minute with a busted leg and who-knows-what-else wrong with him, so he left it to Peter. This was, after all, Peter's area of expertise – saving people and doing the impossible.

Ned and Emerson gave him a hand, and with some jolting and cursing he managed to get to the car all right. He wasn't in any condition to drive, so he rode shotgun and Olive took the wheel while the detective, grumbling, sat in the back. Ned raced back to his car, where Chuck was already waiting with the engine running, and they managed to drive away from the scene of the crime a few seconds before the first cop cars and fire engines arrived. None of them noticed that Peter was already gone.

-

It was harder than he'd thought it would be to freeze time, and he blamed it on the fact that he simply hadn't made much use of Hiro's ability before. He had to try twice before he got it, and he sighed when he opened his eyes and saw that everything around him had stopped moving. He'd worried that it wasn't going to work at all.

"That's it," he muttered to himself, because the stillness and silence was just a little creepy. "When this is over, I've gotta practice. Claude had the right idea – except for the beatings. There's got to be a less painful way."

He glanced around quickly, to check that everything was _staying_ frozen, and flew quickly back toward the building. He tried to visualize where Elle had been standing when it fell, and hovered over the spot that he thought it was.

He didn't think he could keep this up – flying, stopping time, and using telekinesis all at the same time – for long, so he sifted through the rubble as quickly as he could. It took him about two minutes to find Elle, who wasn't quite where he remembered her being – further back, like she had tried to run out the back door and hadn't made it. When he'd dug out a hole large enough, he landed beside her.

She was in bad shape; unconscious, breathing shallowly, and covered in cuts. She was bleeding from a head wound, as well, and Peter wasn't optimistic about her fate, but he'd promised he'd get her and he was going to be damned if he'd prove Mohinder's suspicions of him correct. Touching her gently on the arm, he let time resume its normal course, and teleported them both out of there.

-

By the time the two cars pulled up outside the Pie Hole, Peter was really starting to get worried in spite of himself; Elle hadn't moved or shown any signs of regaining consciousness, and her breathing was irregular. Prodding gently, he'd discovered that she had a few cracked ribs and a broken collarbone, in addition to the arm that had already been broken.

"You sure took your time getting here," he grumbled as Mohinder walked in, one arm slung over Olive's shoulders.

"The city's crawlin' with cops, we tryin' to keep a low profile, and you think we oughta be speedin'?" Emerson asked.

"You've got a point," Peter conceded, "But I'm not sure Elle can afford to wait for much longer."

"How is she?" Chuck and Mohinder chimed at the same time. The geneticist didn't wait for an answer but hobbled forward to check her condition. Chuck didn't want to get in the way or crowd Elle, so she stayed where she was but peered forward.

Peter just said, "Not good," but Mohinder's reaction let her know, if not the specifics, at least the degree. There was a look of dread on his face as he said:

"We've got to get her to a hospital. Now."

But the empath had another idea, and shook his head. "She's in really bad shape. They might not even be able to help her."

"That's not reason not to try," Chuck scolded him.

Peter raised an eyebrow, partly in surprise at her interference and partly in disagreement. "It is if there's another way."

Mohinder startled at the comment, and blurted out, "Of course. A transfusion. Your blood could…" but the anger on Peter's face made him stop mid-sentence.

"D'you think if my blood could heal, Nathan would still be in the hospital?"

"I'm sorry," Mohinder looked away in chagrin.

"Don't worry about it," Peter replied. "I had the same thought, but it doesn't work for me. Healing's not in my blood – not the same way."

"Then why are we still here? If there's nothing you can do – "

"Just because I can't do anything," Peter replied quickly, not wanting to waste any more time, "Doesn't mean that there's nothing we can do." And he stared at the Pie Maker.

Ned couldn't quite understand why he was being dragged into this. It took him a minute to figure out, or to think he'd figured it out. "I'm sorry, I realize she's your friend, and it would really suck if she dies like this, but I can't let someone else die for her. If she dies, and if you want a minute to – say goodbye, or something – I can do that, but that's the most I can give you."

"That isn't what I meant, Ned."

"Then I don't know what you think I can do."

"You could fix her _now,_ before she dies."

"How do you expect me to do that?"

"I _expect_ you to _try,_" Peter snapped.

Ned was feeling stubborn, though, so he just shook his head and replied, "It doesn't work like that. I'm sorry."

"You don't know that for sure," Mohinder replied. "If you can reverse death, who's to say that you can't fix other injuries?"

"I am," Ned answered.

Mohinder pressed on with his argument. "It's entirely possible that you can do it, and you simply don't know because you haven't tried before."

The Pie Maker wasn't sure he had a decent response to that, so he looked for guidance to the person he trusted most in the world.

Chuck nodded. "Does it really hurt to try?"

The Pie Maker felt like none of them understood just _how much_ it might hurt to try, just how _wrong_ this could go – assuming that anything was going to happen at all. Would Elle's injuries simply be repeated on someone else? He shut his eyes, trying to focus his mind on what he was about to attempt. It was strange; he'd never had to think about it to make the dead come back; they always just _did_. But maybe that was the problem; maybe he should have been thinking about it, focusing on it, a little bit more.

"I really have to do this?" he asked with his eyes closed.

"No," Chuck answered from behind him, her voice full of love and acceptance, and that was all he needed to hear. Peter opened his mouth to say something, but Chuck put a finger to her lips and shook her head. He settled for glaring at the Pie Maker.

It was completely silent in the Pie Hole, and Ned found it easier to concentrate than he had imagined. _Heal,_ he thought, _get better, don't die; don't anybody die._ A feeling of calm descended over him, and with no further hesitation he opened his eyes, stepped forward, and poked Elle on the shoulder with one finger.

The silence lasted for a few more seconds, when Emerson replied, "Well?"

Mohinder looked defeated as he answered, "No change."

"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," Olive said, trying to remain upbeat. "No shame in not getting something right the first time. Maybe you gotta just poke her again."

Ned gestured for them all to be quiet and took a few steps away from Elle. His purpose was not immediately clear to the others; it wasn't until they had waited, tense and uncertain, for nearly a minute that they understood. That was when Elle gasped and started to cough. She rolled over on her side and propped herself up, and caught her breath long enough to ask, "You all going to stare, or you going to get me some water?" before she started coughing again.

Most of the plumbing was in a rather disastrous state, but Chuck grabbed a cup in the kitchen and ran to the bathroom to use the sink. By the time she'd come back, Elle had stopped coughing and was staring with surprise at her sling.

"Hey, my arm feels better," she commented, grinning wildly. "How awesome is that?" She took off her sling and started moving her arm around.

"Elle, do you remember what happened?" Mohinder asked, a little confused that she was only concerned with her arm and none of the trauma she had sustained in the actual fight.

"Well, duh, we were fighting Sylar and totally beating his ass. I dropped a building on his head, and…" some of her enthusiasm wore off here. "This isn't where we were."

"No."

"This is the Pie Hole," she looked at the others for confirmation.

"Yes."

"How the hell did I get to the Pie Hole?" she demanded.

"Elle," Mohinder sighed and proceeded cautiously. "When you dropped that building on Sylar…you also dropped it on yourself."

"That's ridiculous," the blonde said with contempt. "I have better aim than that."

"Then how did you get covered in blood?" Peter asked.

Elle hadn't noticed how disheveled she was yet. She took into account the blood and dust on her clothes, skin, and hair, but she wasn't ready to believe that just yet. "If that were true, wouldn't I be feeling _worse_ than before, not _better?_"

"Ned healed you," Chuck explained.

"You can do that?" she glanced at the Pie Maker with something similar to respect.

He just shrugged and muttered, "Apparently."

Peter was thrilled beyond the understanding of his companions. They only saw that Elle was better and he was happy; they didn't see the possibilities. But he could, and he was in too much of a rush to leave and test them out, so he made hasty farewells. "Olive, Ned, Chuck, Emerson, it's been great meeting you all. Take care of yourselves, okay?"

"You're leaving?" Olive asked.

"Sylar's gone, and I have things I need to do." Peter's urgency did not make him completely blind to her disappointment. "I'll come back to check on you guys," he promised, not sure how he was going to live up to it but deciding he would try. "I just – this is important."

"Thanks for everything," Chuck gave him a goodbye hug. "You really saved the day, you know that?"

"It's what I do," he replied jokingly, and received a hug from Olive as well. "I couldn't have done it without you guys, though." He turned to face Emerson and Ned; neither of them really seemed to want a hug, so he simply nodded and said, "Goodbye. Thanks again," and then he was gone.

-

"That was kinda weird," Ned commented slowly.

"Actually, I think it's time we depart, as well," Mohinder said. "I doubt Sylar will be coming back in his present condition, and we're probably being missed back at the Company."

"Ugh, no kidding," Elle suppressed a mild shudder. "We're in for a scolding."

The Pie Maker was in slightly less of a rush. "But you can't actually know for a fact that he won't come back, either now or when he's feeling better, and I'm not really comfortable with that thought. What do we do then?"

Mohinder agreed that Ned had a point, but all the same… "I think you'll be able to handle yourselves just fine," he answered, nodding at Olive. "Just in case, though, you've got my number. Call me if there's some problem."

Ned nodded, glumly, because he supposed that was the best answer he'd get. If he weren't so worried about the safety of his friends, he would be glad to see the scientist leaving.

There was another round of awkward goodbyes; under the circumstances, everyone felt it was better to keep them short.

"Good luck," Olive wished Elle. "Hope we don't cause you too much trouble."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure you have," came the surprisingly cheerful reply.

Emerson Cod shook his head in disbelief. "Just don't go blowin' yourself off up no more. Least not when I'm around."

"What happens now?" Ned asked Mohinder.

The geneticist sighed. "We go back to the Company and investigate, see if we can find another lead. I just hope that his injuries mean we'll have some time before he goes after another victim."

"Well, take some more back-up next time," Chuck ordered him. "We don't want you to get hurt again."

"Oh, right, about that," Ned said. "I almost forgot. Let me see."

Mohinder tried to protest, "No, don't worry about it. You don't have to – "

Ned was feeling stubborn again. He remembered how that calm place in his mind felt, and it was easier to find it this time. He laid a hand on the geneticist's shoulder and said, "It's not a big deal. Besides, I figure we kinda owe you one."

"I think we're already even on that account," Mohinder replied, but any further argument he may have made was cut off when he realized it was too late. His leg was still broken, but there was a jolt that ran from the healer's hand on his shoulder down to his leg, and a dozen other places he hadn't realized he'd hurt, and he felt energy flowing through him.

"It did work, right?" Ned asked, slightly doubtfully, and the geneticist just laughed.

"It's strange. I can feel it, but it hasn't happened yet. Thank you; it means a lot, that you would do something like this."

"Yeah, well," embarrassed, Ned rubbed the back of his neck. "Don't mention it."

"I'm afraid I have to make a similar request," Mohinder said solemnly. "I'm sure you understand that this has to be kept secret – the powers, our visit here, all of it."

"Yeah, don't worry," the Pie Maker replied. "I'd rather not talk about it with anyone. Ever," and he drifted over to say goodbye to Elle.

Chuck stayed behind a moment to give Mohinder a kiss on the cheek. "Don't wait for the next live or death situation, okay? You should come by sometime for pie."

"I'd like that," he responded honestly. He really _did_ want to try a slice of that pie, and if there was any chance that Ned would let him study his ability some more…but there was also Chuck, giving a very surprised Elle a goodbye hug and making her promise to stay in touch, and Olive, so pleased to have helped and so proud of herself for having strength she'd never imagined, and Emerson, pretending to be too jaded to care about any of this, and Ned, who had helped when he didn't have to and when it had caused him anxiety. They hadn't caught Sylar, but maybe it hadn't been a complete loss after all.


	16. epilogue

Epilogue:

The drive to the airport was long, but it was blissfully quiet. Mohinder reveled in the silence, in what might be he last moments of peace for a long time. He didn't even want to think about what he faced back at home. Yet apparently Elle wanted to, or knew that they'd have to sooner or later and they might as well settle a few things now, because when they were just a few minutes away she casually commented:

"We've never seen a healer quite like that. Never. The Company would kill to get their hands on him."

Mohinder knew it was true, and that was one of the many things he didn't want to think about. "The more they want someone, the worse it is for the person they want. I won't let that to happen to him. To any of them."

Elle eyed him for a long moment, trying to read him or put something together in her head; he wasn't sure what to expect, and he wasn't happy to hear her say, completely matter-of-fact, "Do you know what happens to operatives who hide specials?"

He glared, angered as much by her attitude as by her comment – how could she sound so professional, so clinical, so _detached _when Ned had saved her life? She could at least sound bad about it. "I guess I'll just have to find out," he snapped.

Her face broke out into a wide grin as she cheerfully replied, "Good. I'd hate to think I was gonna have to kill you to keep you quiet."

-

They were camped out at Emerson's office once again; construction had started a few days before and the Pie Hole was closed until it was finished. The detective grumbled about having them in his space all the time, especially since they were now four, not three, but he didn't make any serious move to kick them out. He just told them to be quiet about it so he could count Blake Blakely's money in peace and quiet.

They didn't always honor his request, but he'd expected that. He _hadn't_ expected to get dragged into what they were doing.

"Why ya'll need me for?" he demanded. "Play your games by yourselves, I don't care, but I got things to do."

"What 'things?'" Olive countered, resting her hands on her hips and glaring at him impressively, despite the disparity in height. "You don't have any cases and even an old miser like you can only count your money so many times. This is more important."

"Thought you'd got this all figured out by now. You ain't been doing nothin' else for the last week!"

"Well, I know that I can set up a shield to block Chuck from getting through. I _want_ to see if I can make one that will keep specific people out but let everyone else in, and for that, I need more than one person_._"

"Just humor her, Emerson," Ned replied from a chair in the corner. "It's hard to concentrate when you're bickering."

"You wanna read your damn book so bad, go to the library," the detective replied without any real malice. "Don't see why you think it so interestin', anyway."

"I'm educating myself. I thought you would approve of that sort of thing," Ned flipped a page in _Activating Evolution._

"Oh, I'll approve when you open the Center for Miracle Healin' and start rakin' in the big dough."

Ned sighed. "Low profile, remember?"

"That just means no paycheck, don't it."

"Basically."

"I'm sick o' this power stuff already."

"Come on, Emerson," Chuck urged. "When in Rome, right?"

"More like 'When in Crazyville, act like a damn lunatic.'"

"I heard that was going to be the original cliché, but it just wasn't catchy enough."

The argument lasted for several minutes, but they finally convinced Emerson to help, provided they 'kept the commentary to a minimum' – the threat of cutting him off from his pie supply may also have been a deciding factor. The bargain did not prevent him from muttering, "World of tomorrow, ain't it grand," the next time Olive's shield formed in the air in front of him.

The Pie Maker, keeping an eye on them, raised an eyebrow. "It's certainly…something."

That was one thing, at least, that they could all agree on.


End file.
